Skip to main content

Grapevine Botanic Garden

For some reason our photos this year wound up being dumped in one large folder, imaginatively entitled 2012.  Nine months into the year, I finally have been getting around to categorising them, and thereby discovering a few blog posts I should have written.  This is one.


Grapevine Botanic Gardens is not on the scale of its Fort Worth or Dallas counterparts, being more of a glorified park, but a very pretty one nonetheless.  We first went there on a sunny Saturday earlier this year, after driving past the signpost many times, and it was packed with people taking bridal photos and picnicking on the grass.  We've been a few times since then, and every time Toby heads straight for the fountain with the handy toddler-height overflow.




Once we manage to detach him from that, the next stop is usually the pretty little pond system with footbridges, splashy waterfalls, and huge spotty fish.  On our latest visit we noticed a little snake nestled comfortably under a rock, too.





That was the time there were lizards everywhere, as well.  Green ones, brown ones, puffy-throated ones...  We watched with fascination as a male ever-so-slowly stalked a female through the branches of a plant.  Usually when we see a lizard it's, "oh look, there's a ..." rustle rustle rustle as it disappears into some leaves.  I had never seen one move so deliberately.







One of my favourite parts is this plant wall, with windowboxes forming a cascade of vegetation.  It looks like an ideal thing to jazz up a bare garden wall.  They also have a vertical arrangement which creates a very compact herb garden.  I'd love to try it one day!




Just over the road is Nash Farm, a modest plot of land containing a 19th century farmhouse and assorted farming paraphernalia.  Recently it hosted an Italian car show, where Lamborghinis lazed under the live oaks and Alfa Romeos rested next to rusty tractors.  Graham ogled the sports cars and dreamed about selling the house to buy a Ferrari, while Toby and I hung out on the porch and sipped lemonade in the sunshine. Everyone was happy!







Comments

Martha said…
Just to clarify Hon, if you're thinking the bottom photo's a Ferrari (just coz it's red), it isn't- it's a 1972 De Tomaso Pantera! Hubby
Martha said…
I wasn't even going to attempt to identify those car photos! If you're interested in that kind of thing you will know what they are.

Popular posts from this blog

National Forest Way: The End!

The National Forest Way finishes at Beacon Hill, Leicestershire, with beautiful wide-ranging views in all directions. I'd been hoping for a sunny day, and this one certainly fit the bill. The frosty earth lay under a glorious canopy of shining blue sky. I parked at Swithland Wood, close to where we finished the previous walk. Finding the waymarker on the first gate was bittersweet - this was the last time I would be following these familiar circles.   Swithland Wood had been acquired by the Rotary Club in 1931, and later passed on to Bradgate Park Trust. The lumpy terrain was due to slate quarrying. I skirted a couple of fenced-off pits. As I left the wood, I passed a lake which I assumed was another flooded quarry, but with an odd little tower next to the water. I followed a road up a steady hill towards Woodhouse Eaves. Many of the houses were surrounded by walls of the local slate. Woodhouse Eaves was a prosperous-looking village with some nice old buildings. Crossing the wide ...

Theme: Body

I didn't plan this to be a theme week, but Toby's new refrain has become, "I want to do something else " (how does he know it's the school holidays?)  Something else turned into my digging out my body-themed activities and roll of cheap wallpaper.  So here we go! First thing to do is draw a body, and fortunately I had a handy template.  Lie down, Toby! Just ignore the face.  And lack of neck.  I know it's not a great likeness, but he really is that tall.  How on earth did that happen? He knew pretty much all the body labels already, so I can't really claim it as a learning opportunity.  Still, revision is good, right?  And everyone enjoys colouring on a huge sheet of paper. Another sheet of wallpaper became a blank canvas for hand and foot painting.  Fortunately it's been great weather, as outside is always the best place to do this.  Even with a strategically placed tub of water for washing off in. I've gone gree...

Austin part 2

Well, I wrote about Bats, Bluebonnets and Breakfast Tacos in a previous post, but that only seemed to cover about half of what we actually did in Austin (were we really there only for a weekend?). And we had several more great photos that Graham has been bugging me to post on my blog, so prepare yourselves for an extravaganza of colour, light and image! Austin is known as a great place for live music, which presumably explains the psychadelic guitars left lying around the streets. Here's Graham with a couple of his dream instruments. We visited the Texas State Capitol, built on a grand scale from tons of pink granite and limestone. The state capit o l, you understand, is located in the state capit a l. Don't get confused. Americans definitely tend towards the domes-and-pillars school of architecture for their governmental buildings. I had a feeling this was true, so did a quick search for corroborating evidence and discovered this great site by a ph...