it's fun to invent alternate lives

On a recent trip to the Kauffman Gardens near the plaza in Kansas City, my inner gardener was awakened, re-vitalized, and motivated.  Raise your hand if you want to make a bunch of key tassels like these and hang them up somewhere in your garden/porch/patio. Aren't they just simple and fabulous? Imagine them on a sunny day with the light filtering through. Sigh. 

I do not feel the need to have a buddha's hand citron in my garden, but a gardenia would be welcomed. The one below was covered with blooms and smelled heavenly.

Yes please to the argyranthemum above, especially with those artfully arranged curly branches. As soon as I win the lottery I am also getting a dancing girl in a water feature. 

Columbine, iris, allium, pansy's, and coral bells were all in top form. 

A peach iris is not generally my favorite, but this one was the exact color of an old "party-dress" we used to dress up in when we were kids. Hadn't thought of it in years. I remember none of the specifics of the playing, but the dress I recall in great detail. 

When I told Joan that these flowers looked like a dutch girl with braids, she told me her grandmother used to tell her they were "the bleeding heart of Jesus" when she was a kid way up in North Dakota years ago. 

Window shopping at the Crestwood shops is always enjoyable, especially after a spring salad (butter lettuce, grilled shrimp, avocado, orange, grapefruit, candied walnuts, dried cranberries) eaten out of doors at Aixois. We sat and imagined the lives of the other diners around us. What they did, what kind of house they lived in, what their relationships were like, what routines they had. You know, just the usual stuff you do when you go out and see PEOPLE again. 

We passed by a house while we were out and I had to screech on the brakes to take photos of the poppies. The house next door was for sale and we discussed the pros and cons of buying it, how we would decorate, rockers versus a swing versus regular chairs for the front porch, etc... It's fun to invent alternate lives. 

It was a lovely day. Not taken for granted, each detail tucked in a special folder to be opened again when needed. 

Comments

[jacki long]

Wonderful photos, Carol! Your enjoyment shows through your photography.

[Brenda]

Thanks for taking us along, again, on your outing. The fountain and flowers are amazing. I wrote down the salad ingredients to try. My husband got a hot tip that the perch are running so we're headed to the Oregon coast to camp, fish, bike, walk in the sand, etc. We usually stop by the shrimp processing plant & pick up a pound or so of fresh shrimp - shrimp melts and your spring salad! I'm halfway through Paula McLain's newest, When the Stars Go Dark. It's described as "an atmospheric novel of intertwined destines and heart-wrenching suspense: a detective hiding away from the world & a series of disappearances that reach into her past" And it is set in Mendocino.

[carol]

oh Brenda! that book sounds like good bedtime reading - IN MENDOCINO. Love it. Enjoy your trip to the Oregon coast. what a treat.

[carol]

Thanks Jacki: I love a great day off like that one was.