Garden of Lights

Each year the botanical garden in Richmond hosts a Gardenfest of Lights. The grounds are decorated with lights with a botanical theme. Instead of water in the fountain, the frog here looks at a pot of glimmering gold and jewels. Note the great greenhouse in the background. Floating around them are huge butterflies and lights created to look like lilac bushes. Through candycane shaped red and white lights is a children's garden. Instead of rows of grapevines is a maze of muliticolored lights which the children run thorugh. Parents carefully monitor the games while sipping hot chocolate or toasting marshmallows for s'mores.

Wander past the pond and there are lights shaped as trout and notherns diving through the air. Further down are a flock of flamingos and alligators. In front of the great greenhouse is a peacock. This picture was taken using nighttime option on the camera. It is not as good as Emily Law pictures, but it does give you an impression of the lights.

In addition there are roses with lights climbing up arbors and lights highlighting plants still in bloom.

Snow

It snowed in Richmond, Virginia last week. Terry took this picture from the front porch. The snow only lasted a few hours, but suddenly it seemed a lot more like Christmas.

As you can see from the picture, leaves are still on the trees. Where Hibbing has snow, Richmond has leaves. Leaves are raked into the street or by the driveway. Then the City of Richmond sends around trucks with huge vacuums to suck up the leaves and cart them away. The next day more leaves kept on falling and the raking begins again.

Last week a city of lights festival was held at the state capitol. Governor Kaine and his wife turned on the lights for the city and held an open house. While this was going on, a crew from the Richmond Public Library and I helped host a Polar Express party at the train depot. As families walked into the Main Station, they were greated by a conductor who gave them a ticket. Then they were met by an elf who gave everyone a bell. On the upper level was Santa, hot chocolate and cookies. There were more elves singing Christmas songs and the Library crew. We elved (rather than manned) a storytelling area, a make-and-take craft area and hosted a book give away. One of the librarians brought a camel puppet, named Fred. I had the pleasure of helping Fred greet the children and parents. For the most part Fred was very well behaved. He posed for pictures, did not eat anyone's cookies and talked to the children as camels often do. He did become a bit carried away as a dancing fool, when some of the more snappy music was playing. It was a fun evening. I was told I would be invited back again next year.