If the Previous Posts haven't convinced you about Como Park . . .

. . . look at these, and maybe you'll be convinced.








Late summer is when the Northern Plains really come into their own.

More Como Park Conservatory

My yard is not looking nearly so glorious as Como Park Conservatory, so here are some more photos from my visit several weeks ago. Unfortunately, I was so swept away by everything around me, that I did not write down the name of the plants and flowers. Anyone know what these are?

Shapes and Banana Plants

Because the theme for the week is still "Shapes" . . .

Butterfly Party! Como Park Conservatory & Zoo

Butterflies are like winged rainbows! If you should tire of the water lillies at Como Park, just head over to the Butterfly Exhibit.

Even though the butterflies seem frantic in how rapidly they move their wings, there's something hypnotically peaceful about them. Sinister, almost. Look how they've captured these two women under their spell:

And then one of the women was turned into this butterfly, (or maybe my eyes deceived me):

These butterflies were having an identity crisis and were uploading butterfly information into their databases:

And this last shot was a bit challenging. I was determined to take it, but while I pressed the camera shutter, a butterfly decided to hurl itself at me and sit on my shutter finger, not budging through 6 or 7 shots:

Como Park Zoo & Conservatory: Water Lillies

Oh bliss! We're getting to do the stuff that's the perogative of every empty nester; wander to our heart's content through a conservatory! While Brian was at work or in school (translation: we weren't packing food into him or helping him move), we headed over to Como Park Zoo & Conservatory in Minneapolis. My shutter finger was so so happy!









I believe my nephew managed to be the person who registered as the 15,000th view of my blog; John, if you're reading this, check your mail for a gift certificate for $20 to Amazon.com!

Frog & People-Watching in Mall of America

In between seeing Brian, Doug and I were free to wander Minneapolis, anywhere our little Garmin would lead us. And like the zombies in "Night of the Living Dead," we returned to the place we knew and loved: the Mall of America.

Brookstone always appeals to us, because of all the massage machines you can sample. But this display really caught our eye:



Imagine! Being "called" when your grilling food reaches the perfect temperature! It just made us laugh! And could someone look any dorkier?

Next, we checked out the wall of frogs:

And then we headed to what is now one of my favorite restaurants: Crave. The food is wonderful, but if you luck out, as we did, and are seated in a corner, you have the perfect spot for people watching on two floors at once.

I thought this little interaction, that I could spot from the floor above, was very entertaining: two exhausted shoppers taking a little break from one another.

I wasn't quick enough with my camera to catch two little girls lapping up water from the fountain (not a drinking fountain!) before their mom intervened.

Transgenerational Transmission of Data

The day after we dropped Dianna off at the airport, we went out to lunch with Brian. One wonderful thing about now having adult children is that they can introduce you to all sorts of interesting restaurants and features of their city.


And it gives you a chance to engage in the necessary function of feeding them mass quantities of food, as well.

We also got to engage in the other delight associated with newly launched offspring: helping them move. There was one really scary moment in which Doug and Brian were bringing down a very narrow set of steps an old, heavy, 40 inch TV. Several times, I saw them slip, and just couldn't watch. I like to photograph just about anything, but photographing this was the furthest thing from my mind. Fortunately, his new apartment had an elevator!

So Much Wonderful to Look at in the St. Olaf Library

Everywhere you look on the St. Olaf campus, there is something beautiful. Look at this bulletin board in the library; it's a work of art all in itself!




These are government document files in the library--not something you normally think of as beautiful, but look how the file holders are decorated! I'm going to start adding photos to my tax form files after seeing this!


We were on the campus this past weekend as Dianna finished up last-minute tasks before catching her flight to India Wednesday evening. Driving to Minneapolis involved navigating our way through the tornado warnings, from Grand Forks, to Minneapolis, with our new car.

As "parental units", we were called into duty to assist with the last minute tasks (driving, photo copying, picking up prescriptions, you know the drill. . . ) and that heart-wrenching task of seeing your baby off to a foreign country for four months. I love her independence; I'm jealous of the opportunity; and I want it to go well and her to be safe!

Then it was off to see our son, and help him move. . .

Admiring Facial Hair

It was a rainy weekend, so I pulled out a photo from June, with Doug picking up a few grooming tips from one of the fine citizens of Walker, MN.

If you get a chance, check out Barb's comment on Friday's post. She was one of the Zoo Entourage and she adds her memory to the "experience."

Praying Mantis and my Super Cool Sister

You've seen this photo before, but it warrants another post. And you all know how over-the-top I can be about my various and sundry relatives, and so I'm sure you'll indulge this post about my little sister, Rina.

Rina works in the forests in Chicago. It's the perfect job for her, because she's always had a biologist-naturalist heart. (One year, she nursed, over many months, an abandoned, injured, baby bird back to health, and then convinced an entire contingent of my relatives to accompany her to the zoo for a Freedom Ceremony to release it into their protected-from-the world aviary. Except it turns out that it wasn't protected from the gorilla. So when the bird panicked, and hit a post in its first seconds of freedom, it fell, and while plummeting, was plucked out of the air by a gorilla, who promptly ate it. A 30-second story, start to finish.)

Last November, Rina came upon praying mantis casings. I guess these are like praying mantis eggs. They usually spend the winter outside, and hatch around the end of June.

Rina wanted to see what baby praying mantises and the hatching process would look like, so she brought the casings indoors and decided to duplicate their natural conditions--except indoors.

She put them in a refrigerator, and every day before work she went outside and checked the weather. If it was cold, she reduced the temperature. If it was raining, she sprayed them with water. If the day had 6 hours of sunshine, they got 6 hours of light. Eventually, she moved them to a window box planter. And she photographed the process with her new Nikon D40.

By the end of May, when nothing happened, she was ready to toss them. But by mid-June, while she watched, and shot away with her camera, they hatched! Some 30 little itty bitty perfectly formed praying mantises!

She said that if they didn't scatter, the mother would eat them. . . so they did! But one continued to stick around for a few days, visiting Rina.

Rina showed her photographs to the forest rangers, and now they've incorporated the photos and her descriptions of the process, into a brochure for distribution to the school district. How cool is that?! Unfortunately, my sister is not a high-tech person, doesn't have a computer, so can't email copies of the photos. But once I get to see them, or the brochures, I'll be sure to include a shot of them.