Saturday, July 11, 2015

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2009. Mattie was in the clinic of the Hospital. He was playing at the art therapy table with his buddy, Maya. Maya was the only friend he had at the hospital who was his age. All his other friends were at least a decade older. Maya and Mattie were engaged in a very creative play that day, involving aliens from outer space. They designed the set, the creatures, and as you can see were giving us all a performance!


Quote of the day: Trees and plants always look like the people they live with, somehow. ~ Zora Neale Hurston


I found this quote today and I happen to love it! To me it is spot on. You can tell a lot about a person based on his/her garden or lack there of. How is the garden planted, what is in the garden, is it organized or free flowing, colorful or not, how is it maintained, are things dead or alive........ and the list goes on! Gardens do reflect the personalities of the people who cultivate them in one way or another. 

Peter and I really wanted to see the lotuses at the Aquatic Gardens today. They bloom around July 4th every year. However, we did not realize it was the annual lotus festival at the gardens today and HUNDREDS of people were there to see the flowers in bloom. We thought it was last Sunday and we missed the crowds. But we were wrong! So literally we drove to the Gardens, just to drive right out of the park. Neither one of us like crowds and there is no way we are going to see this beautiful sight surrounded elbow to elbow with so many people. So instead we turned the car around and headed to the US National Arboretum. That was the right thing to do, because we saw some beautiful sights today. 

Typically we have gone to the Arboretum in April, for the blooming of the azaleas. The Arboretum has hundreds of them and they are incredible. My joke with Mattie was that the azaleas always bloomed in celebration of his birthday. He used to love when I said that as well as coming to visit the Arboretum and the azaleas. The Arboretum is a wide open space with 446 acres with 9.5 miles of winding roadways. So it gives you the feeling of being any where but in a large city like DC.   

Peter drove to a part of the Arboretum that we haven't visited in at least a decade. I am so happy we journeyed to the Asian Collections today. It was a very serene part of the property and filled with all sorts of amazing flowers. 

As we were walking along one of the pathways today, we came across this wonderful purple bush. This bush was a butterfly magnet! At least two large butterflies were flying around it! I captured this beautiful Eastern Tiger Swallowtail in her glory! 

What I can't capture for you on this blog posting is the intoxicating fragrances throughout this garden. They were just wonderful. Each area within the garden seemed to produce its own unique fragrance and the bees and butterflies were just fluttering away. 

One of the walking pathways in the gardens led us right to the base of the Anacostia River. So there literally was just about something for everyone to see at the Arboretum.