mistressofmuses (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-05-16 09:46 pm
mistressofmuses) wrote2025-05-16 09:46 pm
Tuesday: Hudson Gardens
Quick picture of Berry Mad, lurking in the corner of her plant pot.
On Tuesday, we had a few errands to run, but spent most of the day at Hudson Gardens.
It was a little early, though it's been so warm it didn't feel like it should be, ha. They hadn't yet planted their annuals or put out any of the water plants, but there was still plenty to see, and it was a very nice day to walk around.
Crabapple blossoms against the sky.
Sixteen more pictures:
Lily of the valley.
A bushtit. They are so remarkably tiny, and the name remains so unfortunate!
Potentilla.
Honeybee on an allium.
Wild roses.
An iris.
Speedwell.
More irises.
Lilacs, which smelled wonderful.
These roses were such an intense red that my phone camera didn't want to believe it existed, ha.
Only a few of the flowers had this kind of yellow variegation, but it was neat.
We stopped and had a fancy coffee and split a pastry (banana bread) from the coffee shop down along the bike trail. Always nice.
The bee hives are more accessible again! Still behind their usual fence, of course, but last year they were trying to reestablish some of the grass and groundcover, so a lot of the grounds were off limits, including the view of the hives.
We'd been hoping for frogs, but alas. Mom and Taylor heard a lot of frogsong up in the mountains a few days before (on a Mother's Day hike), but nothing at the gardens, alas.
However...
There were so many tadpoles! Future frogs!
We took another break at the far end of the gardens, and split a can of boba tea. It was delicious, but had a couple silly things on the can:
Shack well! Precipitation may occur!
We spent a long time just sitting in the "cascades" area, listening to the water and talking. It was a lovely afternoon.
Across the 'mountain stream', a family of geese scrambling up the banks. They were so cute! And hungry. We watched the little goslings just going to town on some of the plants over there, haha.
I liked that there was grass and some small plants growing out of the top of one of the logs. I also rather liked the reflection of the trees.
After the gardens, we also stopped by Barnes and Noble. I had a couple of gift cards from Christmas and my birthday, and I was wanting to get Overgrowth, the new Mira Grant book.
Obviously, I found a few more books than that, as always.
Five Ways to Forgiveness was one of the Ursula K Le Guin books that wasn't included in that humble bundle of her work, so it'd been on my list. The other four books were on a "buy one, get one 50% off" horror table. I picked out A House With Good Bones, because I've heard good things about it, and Blood On Her Tongue because it sounds interesting and I was tempted by the cool cover design. (The bloody effect on the pages!) Alex picked out The Last House on Needless Street and The Reformatory, because those sounded the best to him. We'll add them to our shared TBR list, ha.
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I love the lilacs! These ones smelled absolutely amazing.
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Lots of neat stuff to see!
I don't have any of those books, but I've heard a lot about some of them. I feel like Last House is a book I've pondered buying a few times. And I need to dive into Kingfisher soon
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It was a lovely afternoon, and definitely nice to get to see things.
I haven't read any of Kingfisher's stuff, but I also have "What Moves the Dead" from that ebook bundle, so I've got two to read, now. I've heard good things about her work, so I'm hoping to like both of these.
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And thank you! I was so glad we got to go out, and it was a lovely day for some spring flowers. <3