Saturday, August 15, 2009

Dow Gardens in Midland Michigan


We went to Midland to visit the Dow Gardens. What a beautiful and inspiring place. There are plants over a hundred years old on acres of land. What I think is the family home is there, beautifully preserved and surrounded by fantastic trees.

This time of year there are hundreds of thousands of are annuals placed on the grounds. A paved walk way circles the gardens and a couple of bridges have to be crossed. The bridges cross a creek that feeds into a pond. There is also a children's garden with all sorts of vegetables and a pump the kids can fill watering cans with. Not far from that is a rose garden. I love roses and they were lovely but showed signs of Japanese Beetle damage. I don't recall seeing those horrible beetles in Britain. The roses I had seen in Britain were healthier looking too. Perhaps it's getting late in the season right know. The heat must be hard on them.

As I said it's a very large area, we were there about three hours. We had taken a wheel chair that was given to me by a friend from when I went to Curves. I pushed it for quite awhile and then Bob pushed me. When it came to a few steep hills I helped with the wheels. It's not designed to be wheeled by the occupant entirely. I'm sure glad we took it. I wish we could have gone 'off road' a few more times to see waterfalls and stuff, but at least I was able to get all the way through and back, with Bob's help of course. I know that I couldn't have done much at all if we hadn't had the chair.

I have to admit it felt great to sit a and get pushed when my legs were protesting, but I never really thought it would come to this. I suppose that years ago when I learn about SP I didn't think that things wouldn't change much. It's hard to imagine that. I sort of figured I'd just plug along limping a bit.

Bob's a gem. He says he loves to help me. I was worried about him feeling like he didn't see all that he would have liked. Just being together was the best. Together at the gardens and together on the same page of life.

9:10 p.m.

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