Lotus Love

We spent the morning touring the National Botanical Garden (NTBG).  It is a very special place where many rare native plants live.  The garden was first owned by the McBryde family and then sold to Robert Allerton.  After Allerton passed away, the property was left as a trust; in the 1990s NTBG formally assumed management of the garden.  *For more history…http://ntbg.org/gardens/allerton-history.php.

As we wandered through the garden, we stumbled upon a magical lotus pond.  This was not just an lotus garden, there was something pure about its essence.  The moment my eyes met the patch of bright green with big pink splashes of lotuses, it instantly reaffirmed that the lotus was my favorite flower.  I have always appreciated the Buddhist  concept of the lotus, or padma, symbolizing purity and beauty due to the fact that it grows from the depth of murky water.  Beauty can grow in the least likely places.

I met three new friends today.  This 175 lb big guy is named Cal.  All tortoises were of different size; Cal is the largest and coolest.  They were placed on the NTBG property be, interestingly, tortoises will only eat nonnative plants.  I am not exactly sure how this works out, but my observations led me to affirm that they were doing just that.

To conclude the work day, we flew a kite and airplane that had capabilities to take aerial photos of the ground below.  We are hoping to use one or both of these to collect data for our projects.