prairie point

Kaylee likes butterflies. We did not have anythng to show her in our little backyard city garden this weekend so Sunday we rounded her up along with the rest of the youngsters visiting in our house and went on an expedition to Fair Park to the Texas Discovery Gardens.

I thought we would find butterflies in the Tropical Conservatory but we were disapointed. There was only a display of mounted specimens, which was somewhat interesting in itself. Likewise the Butterfly Gardens was devoid of the insects too, and the plants there were as bleak as the ones in our own gardens.

But we hit gold in the Shakespeare Garden. It’s an iris garden, overplanted with Mexican milkweed. The plants were covered with Monarch caterpillars, moving sluggishly. After a moment or two we realized that many were in various stages of building their cocoons. This delighted everyone, even the kids.

From there we walked over to the roses, many of which were blooming. We even found a pair of live Monarchs there.

To fill out the afternoon we went on to the Natural History Museum so the boys could see the dinosaur bones. It was a good break from the kid’s regular diet of videos and games. The weather was cool and a little damp, but still not bad enough for a coat. There were a few other families in the museum, but we had the gardens all to ourselves, so the kids could run all they wanted without bothering anyone.