This is Baby Matthew, our grandson. Yesterday his mother and I went to the Botanic Gardens.

This morning I got up and worked on my Heber Green story for a couple of hours. I walked Blue. I have a totally rotten dog who has more energy than any dog I've ever seen. We take walks every day and I would say that if he doesn't walk for a full and I do mean full hour and a day–well, whenever we leave Blue in the house and we're gone for the day, he'll set the security alarm off if he hasn't had his walk. He gets antsy. He jumps up on the couch and looks out the window at people walking down the sidewalk, he shows his teeth at the mailwoman and barks like crazy and generally wreaks enough havoc
that eventually our alarm system believes someone must be breaking into our house.
So after I walked Blue it was time to get ready to go to lunch with Billy and his daughter Anne and our grandson Matthew. Here's Matthew. I know, how could a baby be so cute?
After lunch we went to the Botanic Gardens.

Here is Matthew at our first stop in the Botanic Garden. He's watching the rather large animal come toward him. He really chuckled when the geese sitting beside us decided to jump into the water in the first place. They did this because they saw we had a fish food bag and were getting ready to start throwing fish food out.






If you haven't fed the koi at the Botanic Gardens lately, well, treat yourself. How about this mouth? Is that creepy or what? It reminded me of, well, I won't go into what it reminded me of except we studied it in college biology class and they were in jars with formaldehyde. These fish were very aggressive and are much lovelier when they're swimming around under the water than they are face to face.





In fact, you can tell that Matthew finds the fish a little aggressive. We decided to back up just a little. Matthew if just a little over 2 and takes in everything. We have to be careful what we say in front of him because he loves to repeat what we say. He thinks I'm funny and I think he's funny. When we ride in his mother's car I ride in the back seat with him and make funny faces and sing songs. Yesterday i sang my favorite Mighty Mouse tune of here I come to save the day that means that Nonnie is on the way–on the sea or on the land she's got the situation well in hand!
He got a kick out of that one.







Here is Matthew with his mother, Anne. Those two are really a pair. He's her only child and she didn't have him until she was 45! She's a stay at home mom and Matthew is all the better for it. When they were walking in the park Matthew would say, "Hand, hand." That's his way of telling his mother that it's time for them to hold hands. We're so glad they live nearby in Olive Branch.
We took this picture in front of the bridge because Matthew would have nothing to do with walking over the bridge. NO.That's what he said when I said "Matthew, wanna walk with Nonnie over the bridge?"












It was a beautiful afternoon. The garden did exactly what gardens do. Everywhere I looked I saw beauty. The grass was neatly clipped so that we could walk through fields that reminded me of the pastures in my past, there was a woods with a creek where the buckeyes were turning yellow. There were flowers with pods left pods that expressed a different form of beauty, not the flashy color of summer, but a more mature beauty that one must pause to see, look carefully to see.





As you enter the Botanic Garden the plants seem to have a tropical theme. It's a shady, well protected area that lends itself to plants that wouldn't normally survive here. It has a New Orleans feel to it. There are palms and tree ferns, beautiful coleus that are as tall as I am. The colors and the textures are so beautifully coordinated and I wish I knew more about who does this design work. It was a fun day. This pot I snapped on my way out. Isn't it gorgeous!





He loved playing in the water and splashing.


This is a good place to say THE END!