Wednesday, August 10, 2016

#1735 another wonderful evening at Red Butte Garden

I went up to Red Butte Garden tonight to do the bloom recording in the Children's Garden. I'll be honest...I didn't really want to go. I've been staying up late to watch the Olympics every night and I was really tired today. However, the cooler temperatures (it was ten degrees cooler today than yesterday) and the thought of spending so much time there on Saturday made me decide to just get it done tonight. Once again, I was not disappointed by the garden.

Like I said, it was nice and cool tonight. There was some thunder and a few sprinkles, but overall, it was very pleasant. As usual, I felt like I had the place all to myself. The first group of people I saw were coming down from the upper level of the Children's Garden and they were chattering excitedly. I thought I heard them say "snake". Sure enough, as I continued up the path, I saw a gardener (a really cute one!) carrying the tell-tale can and a snake stick. We stopped to talk. There had been a rattlesnake in the area, but it had got away. We decided I should just skip the area where the snake was. We also commented on how many dragonflies were up there today. The air was thick with dragonflies. I like the critters, but there were too many even for me to handle. I left the upper garden pretty quickly.

Here's a photo of my bloom recording paper:


I'm standing on the upper level of the garden looking at the pond and waterfall in the Children's Garden. Quickly on the bloom recording - I walk through the garden, look for what is blooming, find the plant's name on my list and write down today's date. Apparently the curation department uses the data to track growing and blooming trends. I've also been told that sometimes other gardens use the data to compare to their information.

It's been interesting and fun. I've learned a lot about the plants in the Children's Garden. Will I do it again next year? I haven't decided yet.

When I was finished recording blooms (and checking out the cute gardener) I decided to take a stroll around the garden because I can and I love it. It's so calming and it smells so good and it's so beautiful there. Any doubts I'd had earlier about not going up there vanished and I was thankful to be there.

Thankfully I didn't see any snakes, but I did see some critters:

The three ducks I usually see on the pond. I think they are sisters.

A cute tiny bunny.

An awesome hawk!
I gotta tell you about this hawk. I was walking along a path and I heard bird sounds in the sky. I looked up and saw two good-sized birds fly into the trees on the north side of the path. I could hear them, but I couldn't see them. I stood really still and waited, but they didn't appear, so I went ahead with the walk up the trail.  As I rounded a bend on the path opposite the Water Conservation Garden, this pretty hawk flew right up and sat on the rail (as you can see). I stopped quickly and quietly. The hawk sat there looking at me as I slowly pulled out my beloved iPhone and took the photo. Then he flew right in front of me up into some trees. My heart was pounding. It was so cool!

One more photo, just because I like it:



1 comment:

Lizzie said...

Jeff told me once that a hawk flying in front of you is good luck. Not that a hawk is your spirit animal, but I found this link and thought it had some good stuff: http://www.spiritanimal.info/hawk-spirit-animal/comment-page-10/