Friday Smiles 300: Botanica, part 3

I am once again here for Annie's Friday Smiles.  This will be my final Friday Smiles until the new year.   I apologize because I am putting Friday Smiles on hiatus through the month of December.  I will be back with a final Botanica post on Friday January 4, 2019.

Last week there were various comments about the price of Botanica.  The ONLY two museums that offer a free day are WAM (Wichita Art Museum) and Cowtown.  No other museum in town offers a free day, period. No free passes, no free anything unless you are a member.

Some made comments about the cost.  Remember I said the only day we could go was Sunday, so here are the costs and hours of operation taken directly from their web site:

Your ticket of admission to the gardens 9am – 5pm, Monday-Saturday, year-round. Extended hours: Apr – Sept, Tue & Thur until 8pm.  Apr - Oct, Sunday 1pm – 5pm.

Pricing:
Youth (3 - 12) $5
Adults (13 - 61) $7
Seniors (62+) / Military $6

Now you see why I wanted to see how much I could see in four hours, because Sunday would be our only day we could visit.

Now that is out of the way, and YES, it does seem to be a bit expensive if you are going on Sunday, let's enjoy a few funnies.

As an early Christmas present, a man gets a talking parrot from his friend. He takes the parrot home and puts it in his living room.

But every time the man goes near the living room, he hears the parrot shouting insults at him. In desperation, he puts the parrot in the freezer.

After a few minutes, the insults stop. Thinking he might have killed the parrot, he takes it out of the freezer. The parrot is still alive, but it is shivering.

It stammers, "I'm s-sorry for b-b-being s-so rude. P-p-please forgive m-me."

So the man forgives him. After a while the parrot asks, "What exactly did the turkey do?"



Asked to write a composition entitled, "What I'm thankful for on Thanksgiving,"
little Timothy wrote, "I am thankful that I'm not a turkey."

On Christmas morning a woman told her husband, “I just dreamed that you gave me a beautiful diamond necklace.

What do you think it means?"

“You’ll know tonight," he said.

That evening just before opening presents, the husband came home with a small package and gave it to his wife.

Delighted, she opened it only to find a book entitled “The Meaning of Dreams."



A little girl asked her mother, "How did the human race appear?' The mother answered, 'God made Adam and Eve and they had children and so was all mankind made."

Two days later the girl asked her father the same question. The father answered, "Many years ago there were monkeys from which the human race evolved."

The confused girl returned to her mother and said, "Mom, how is it possible that you told me the human race was created by God, and Dad said they developed from monkeys?"

The mother answered, "Well, dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family and your father told you about his."

Now let's head back to Botanica.

I knew the Children's Garden was in sight,

you can even see the rainbow arches in the background. 

However, I got distracted and headed to the Wildflower Meadow, hoping to get a few ideas for my front yard makeover.  I didn't have time to sit under the pergola they provided,

instead, I hurried to see the wildflowers and beautiful sculpture

called Prairie Flowers.  She was definitely surrounded by beautiful cone flowers,

asters,

and wild grasses that make up

a natural prairie garden.

It doesn't matter how many times I take a photo of this, it isn't going to make it appear any sooner.  BTW, the carousel horses, which have now been restored, will be housed in the hexagon building shown in the upper left part of the sign.

I have finally entered the Children's Garden where I spotted the Sunflower Plaza.  Although you can't see it, there is a Bubbler at the top of the sunflower and it is washing water over the sunflower.

The Plaza Pergola was a perfect place to get out of the extreme heat of the day.

I was now entering the farm where there were raised beds

and funky water pumps children could play with.  To the far right, mostly out of the photo, was the Farmer's Market.  The yellow Farmhouse was in the back of both photos above.

This is known as the Party Barn, possibly because after all that water adventure you might have to use the restrooms located on the side of the building.  I was more interested in the windmill.

I got the feeling, after spending time with the children at the art museum, that this might be a bit juvenile for them.  However, they might learn something if they took time to read all the information and plaques.  Maybe it was just me thinking it was too juvenile.

I found the salamander spring

was being inspected by a young lady

who was so engrossed, she had no idea anyone else was around.  Note the stream that runs under the bridge.

Looking ahead,

I could see a structure in the distance.

I climbed a bolder to see it better.  That might have been a nice place to rest if it wasn't a metal bench on which the sun was beating down!

It was now time to enter the tree and fairy house.

This led to the

tree house.  Next came

my favorite area in the entire Children's Garden: the musical maze.  There were people behind me and they shook their heads as I picked up the two mallets and began banging on the pipes. 

I stopped to take a photo of the horns, then realized they signified the next area of the maze.

Smaller mallets, but still fun to play with.  I was having fun!

Next up

were these bongo type drums.  I've never seen any so colorful before, though.

Ah!  These reminded me of tubular bells.

There were two sets of mallets to play with.  My arms weren't long enough to reach all the pieces, so this would be great for two people playing these.  They didn't sound like tubular bells, but they were very melodic none-the-less.

Another fun instrument also with two mallets.

Finally, the pebble chime.  Reminded me of the rain sticks that you flip upside down and the seeds inside sound like actual rain as they fall through the hollow inside.

And then the experience was over.

I had been here over three hours and it felt like less than one. 

There was one more spot I wanted to visit and I knew it was at the opposite end of the gardens.

It was time to head that way.

I had to pass the small lily pond that sits directly outside the gift shop.

These lilies were much prettier than the ones I saw in the large pond.  I hope you enjoyed the Children's Garden.  I'm still not sure the youngsters will, but they read my blog, so I'll let them decide based on my photos I took.

Thanks for joining me today and thanks for your continued visits.  Now let's visit Annie's Friday Smiles, where it never hurts to begin the weekend with a big smile, just like Annie's. Feel free to join in with a post of your own, too.  I know she'll welcome you, just as she did me several years ago.  And I will see all my Friday Smiles friends again on 4 January, 2019.

This is Day 30, I finally made all 30 days, and am sharing this with Art Every Day Month (AEDM).   I want to make a final comment about AEDM.  When I started this month, I made many of my internet friends and readers aware I was joining again this year.  Granted, I'm not suggesting I influenced anyone to join AEDM this year, but the people who consistently posted daily were ones whose blogs I follow and read on a daily basis.  Were it not for all of you, it would have been a very lonely AEDM this year.

And, as  I have done several years in the past, 

here are my 30 days of AEDM contributions for 2018.