Where are the Children?

"To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a scarlet fever germ get into your body. 
If you let it stay there after it has got you in you may never get over it as long as you live … ” 
Frances Hodgson Burnett, "The Secret Garden"

I've been a little worried lately. The lip treatment wasn't fun (and I'm still experiencing the after effects, which aren't pleasant). Time is flying and soon we will leave for our trip but my foot still isn't up to par; I worry a bit about walking. Frances Hodgson Burnett was right about letting bad thoughts get into our minds. It's not so easy to let them fly away.

I had a little time to kill while waiting for meds the other day so it was healing to take a spin around the MSU Children's Garden.

We've visited here before. It was a little different then!

 

The first thing I noticed was "where are the children?"

The peacock was there.

And the Flamingo and the butterfly.

Mary of "The Secret Garden" was in a field of zinnias.

And the bunny was ready to greet people. But no children.

It was so beautiful, this warm, sunny, early September weekday and the only children I saw were two, coming as I was leaving. OK, school is in session, I get it. But I missed them, their squeals of happiness at the xylophone where they can walk on it and make music with their feet or their delight when running through the maze, seeing a lovely bloom or pondering the moon and star support.

No one was in the "treehouse" fort.

Looking from its elevated height, one could see much of the garden.

Monet's bridge was tranquil and quiet, no little feet scampering over it on this fine day.

There was nary a ripple on the pond, the water reflecting the blue of the sky.

And there was color.

So much color.

Bright walkways.

Cheerful hollyhocks.

Sunflowers that couldn't quit, of every variety and golden hue.

Flowers were everywhere.

Even the fences were jazzed up!

But no children.

When we last visited the sheep, he looked like this:

It felt cold, not dead, really, but not alive, and one wondered how it would ever be spring again. But then, as Frances Hodgson Burnett wrote in "The Secret Garden," "“As long as you have a garden you have a future and as long as you have a future you are alive.” Now our sheep is bathing in the sun.

Soon the pond will freeze over, the petals drop, the blooms dry and fade.

Plants will be pulled out, the ground prepared to weather another snowy winter.

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden,” wrote Frances Hodgson Burnett in "The Secret Garden." 

She is so right.

I think I need to return here soon -- and I bet I know a little boy who would love being lost in the maze, making music with the xylophone and even riding atop the sheep! I'll have to work on that one! Soon!

Sharing this week with:    Let's Keep in Touch   /    Pink Saturday   /   Gardens Galore (Everyday Living)