You lookin' at me?

About a week ago, I spent the afternoon at the Mercer Botanical Garden. It was a nice, sunny and slightly windy day. I admit, St. Louis has some really nice locales available: Forest Park, a Zoo that's free and a really stunning Botanical Garden. It's hard for me to find one that matches its breadth of selection and landscaping.

Mercer does a decent job. Consider its February, and though a Houston winter is nothing like a winter almost everywhere else, I thought the variety was pretty good. There was a decent-sized man-made pond that was drained and looked rather ugly. It looks to have potential though. I'm eager to return and see it in its restored splendor.

I found lots of flowers and associated animals and insects (bees, butterflies and garter snakes). Check out my flickr account for more details.

But I'm most proud of this picture:



I spent about 5-10 minutes at the beginning and the end of my visit trying to capture the koi. They were really hypnotizing to watch and with the vivid colors, they were just waiting to be photographed. It was hard because obviously I had to photograph them through water, and often the reflections from the sun defeated me.

When I uploaded to iPhoto, I was very pleasantly surprised to see that this particular koi was looking straight at the camera. It's a little spooky, actually.

Well... this entry ends the February project. Stay tuned for the March project. It'll keep me on my toes.

On an unrelated note, I'm despising the meth-makers of the world for making me miserable because the Feds restrict my ability to get Claritin-D so I can live in Houston and not be miserable every second. Also darn the short month of February for screwing it all up, too.