Shaw's Garden

On the same day we visited the orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden last year, at about this time of year, we wandered outside into the garden. It was an overcast and misty day, conditions that make the garden a much different experience than on a sunny day. Here Henry Shaw's country home comes into view looking up a main axis of the garden.

Double Slide

Double Slide by Karyn Oliver at Laumeier Sculpture Park, taken about a year ago. It always makes us chuckle.

Snow near Syracuse

Hello from Syracuse.  We have a lot of snow here in Central NY.  

In the city there is about 16 inches, though it will settle over the coming warm (high 30s) spell.  There is no snow left on the trees because the sun came out yesterday making a big difference on any surface it hit.

I took this yesterday morning twenty miles east of here and 700 feet higher. Altitude makes a big difference.

I am posting many winter pictures on Merry@Syracuse, http://merryatsyracuse.blogspot.com/  

my new blog about life in Central NY, and further afield when we can get away!  

St. Louis: Around Town

Maybe you didn't know that St. Louis is the home of Tums, the perfect New Year's Day antidote.  Hope you had a happy one!

PS: Toasted Ravioli...yuk! Tums are good for that, too.

I've begun my new blog in Syracuse called Merry@Syracuse. Please visit.

Gateway Arch

I wish for a New Year that brings you 

and all the world's people safety and peace.

Mark Twain School

Another of my tile finds, this time on the Mark Twain School on the far North side of the city. It is an Ittner school, now abandoned. Blow it up for best effect. I promise to post everything in the way of architecture and ornamentation that I have, which is considerable, on St. Louis Mosaic, my second blog, as soon as I get a block of time. 

I now have a third blog, Merry@Syracuse, as we have moved back to Syracuse NY, in my old home region. Expect lots of pictures of snow in the next while over there. We got twelve and a half inches 

in the past 24 hours.   

Shaw's Garden

To celebrate and amuse us during the holiday weeks the Garden creates a flower and train show, this year commemorating the Garden's 150th Anniversary. Someone created models of all the buildings, and Henry Shaw is everywhere.  Miniature staff are involved in lots of interesting activities.  Be sure to scroll down to find out what happened to a hapless Climatron gardener.

Gateway Arch with Snow

We got a bit of snow, so I hurried to the Arch.  Scroll down to see other scenery from up top.

Top and center...see the legs of the Arch and the covered entrances.  The black lines are the snow brush machine tracks.

The Old Courthouse looks like a model.

The Original Cardinals

Claudia                      Ernesto

                                                                             

Joli

Always curious...always ready to go out.

We had a snow storm at midday yesterday 

after the temperature dropped by 15 degrees between 5 and 7am.  

The storm came at us from the south, 

right up the Mississippi valley in a giant cyclone 

carrying cold air in from the northwest 

and picking up moisture from the Gulf.  

Merry Christmas

Thank you, Robert Indiana.

His iconic LOVE design was first published as a Christmas card in 1964. 

The sculptures came a little later.

We were in New Orleans last Christmas and found this with great delight 

at the sculpture garden adjoining the New Orleans Museum of Art.  

It was a balmy day. 

Season's Greetings

City Garden

St. Louis Zoo

There's a rock at the entrance to the zoo....

Gateway Arch on Winter Solstice

After I bring Ed to work, returning home I am treated to a scene which includes the Arch directly ahead.

Lately darkness prevails, giving the Arch a one dimensional look.  It is not lighted by the National Park Service at this hour, though it shines with the reflected light of downtown streetlights and the slowly awakening hotels and offices.

The morning I took this, a few days ago, a break in the clouds showed that the sun would be coming along, though the break soon closed.

So it is with today, the darkest day of the year. Just after midnight, the light began, incrementally, to return.