Ah, long weekends...

The first week of classes at university are over! I have two online classes and two classroom classes. All my first week requirements are completed for the online classes. I have a bit of catch-up to do in the junior English class I added after dropping a low enrollment class I thought would be cancelled. The beauty of this English class is that it is offered at the community college site where I am driving my youngest to her classes two days a week. I will only have to drive into the St. Louis campus two afternoons a week when the parking lots will be much less crowded.

Water lily pond with Chihuly floating glass orbs at MOBOT

This Labor Day weekend is a bonus break to catch up on sleep, complete an English paper and plow through my other course reading requirements. I took yesterday off to visit the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Garden (MOBOT) with family & friends. I love the Garden venue and the Festival is a wonderful cultural event. Of course,  as a  foodie, I enthusiastically enjoyed a mushroom, bok choy, soba noodle dish and purchased some new chopsticks for home use. The day was hot and muggy but a lovely breeze cooled down the early evening. It was nice to simply walk throughout the Garden and enjoy nature.

Lantern photo courtesy of MOBOT.org

The Japanese Garden is an 11 acre site that showcases specific traditional Japanese garden features. The garden has several waterfalls and islands as well as a tea house and hut. There are numerous stone lanterns and a zen garden. It seems every angle gives the walker or photographer a wonderful picturesque scenario.


Seasonally, the Garden changes offer a lovely environment whenever you visit. I often leave these gardens longing for just twenty-four hours of garden maintenance by MOBOT professionals for my own yard. I rarely see any weeds at Missouri Botanical Gardens and the perfect condition of the plants is amazing. Obviously, they have crews that are not distracted by school or work, that water regularly, and do the very important daily garden bed maintenance. I unfortunately, can only dream of this sort of dedication, so I manage with somewhat inattentive garden maintenance & survival of the fittest plantings.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and relaxing Labor Day weekend!