These boots of mine...

Guess where my boots were today??

Yes, I was at the Botanical Conservatory with my favorite ferns!

Marie and I were talking whilst there ... God's favorite color must certainly be GREEN!  There are ever so many varieties of it in His creation.

See these?

They become this:

And then they become this:

Is there something wrong with me in that I thought the dead bloom was stunning??

Pretty in pink to be sure.

I've never seen such a beautiful example of a bird of paradise.

Have you??

Marie was rather patient with both pushing me, never once asking me to get out and walk a bit, and with all my stopping to take yet another photo.  

Like this, which I would have missed had she not pointed it out to me!

I missed it because I was too busy longing deeply for one of these at my house:

That was after already thinking that I would like these in my yard:

And some of these:

The thing about going to the Botanical Conservatory when much of the city is shut down due to temperatures well below zero is that you discover all the places that are really too warm for you are actually just right!

When that happens, you get to see things you've missed, such as this:

And you get to traverse all the way to the bottom of the tropical display and sit a while with the fish.  Well, you get to if is below zero and your botanical gardens companion is willing to push you back up the long, long, long incline.

Sit—as on the ground—for a while and contemplate what a great plant there is on the far side.

And admire the leaf-within-the-leaf pattern hanging next to you.

With the desert exhibit down right chilly, I was able to spend copious amounts of time admiring things like this:

And pondering things.  Is this really the base of the cactus?

Or an alligator???

And is this a blossom??

Or a makeup brush??

I only got to contemplate that question because Marie when up to the tippy top of the tropical exhibit to see the chocolate tree, spotted the fallen blossom, and brought it to me.  Such mercy!

She also pointed out bark, warming the cockles of my heart!

So much GREEN!  So many textures!  So many shapes!  

My cup runneth over this day!

Truly.

With GREEN and pink.  

Many shades of pink this day.

I could barely restrain myself from touching the glistening, velvety petals of this pink blossom.  I dared not because I wondered if I could do so and not damage it.

And there was bark, of course.  With more GREEN.

Good sense would leave you huddled inside, safe away from the life-threatening temperature outside.  Yet Marie traversed the city to take me about the Botanical Conservatory.  Does that mean she has no good sense or the level of her mercy is such that she put my bliss over her safety??

You wouldn't think I would have anything left to photograph there.  

But I found a few things.

And I'm sure there's more waiting....

I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!