Lady of the Fir

 

A few years ago, the Prague Botanical Garden held an exhibition of sculpture from Zimbabwe. A few still stay, and the girls particularly liked the Lady of the Fir. They found her very mysterious, and as C said in her most rational, explaining voice, "probably magical."

Sunny Sunny Day

Weekend mornings my first question when I wake up is not (as some would have it), "Where's My Tea?" Instead, these days I ask, "Is the Sun Shining?"

We're on the edge of the dark dark days of winter, the gray days that reach across half of our year, pulling us inside and off of hiking paths, city sidewalks, playgrounds and beer gardens, rendering photographs flat and lightless and...well, you see what I am saying. I'm all about drinking coffee and curling up inside with a good book, but six months is a long rainy weekend. So I love the sun right now, knowing it will be gone soon.

Yesterday it was torrentially bright and beautiful here. To celebrate we took a trip to the Botanical Gardens to visit their pumpkin exhibition and meet up with some friends. We spent the afternoon playing giraffeball (a giraffe is a lot easier to catch than a football, Caroline made her first completion!), drinking fizzy drinks and moving from one patch of sunlit grass to another. Every now and again, we looked at a flower or two too. The pumpkins turned out to be mostly ornamental squash, nicely arranged.1. The giraffe is in the air!! One girl down. 2. Gourds, arranged. 3. Path through the garden's forest. 4. & 5. Flowers on show.

Shadow of a horse

Last summer the Prague Botanic Garden hosted an exhibit of Zimbabwean sculptures. My favorite sculpture was this horse. As with many other horses I have met in my life, I wanted to take him home with me, but we are missing the garden he needed to graze in. At least now I have the sketch to remember him by.
.....
Caroline, by the way, insisted on adding eyes to the horse when I finished scanning him in. Rather than give him away so quickly I printed out a copy. She has spent thirty minutes coloring it in quite completely. A new coloring book in the works?