My tax money at work

I guess autumn has begun to invade this land. The temperature dropped to 43 this morning and rose briefly to 61 in the "heat" of the day. I turned my home heating system back on.

I visited Como Park for a rest day walk and a chance to explore a bit. I like to see what kind of changes the powers that be are making to my favorite park. I walked part way around the lake and then thought I'd go to the Conservatory and see what sort of flower show was in session. The signs suggested a summer flower show and I was curious to see what they had.

There were a couple of changes on the way over Lexington and past the labyrinth. They have finished restoring the pool area just past the Lexington pedestrian bridge. For many years the pool was dry and the concrete was cracked. This summer enough money was available to get the pool into the condition in the photo below. It seems to be a big improvement.

And then before reaching the Conservatory I came across a sign announcing the restoration of the Friedrich Schilling statue that greets people as they enter the park. It's been there since 1905, and it has apparently fallen deeply into disrepair. They have a restoration specialist working on making it good again. The specialists have taken it off its pedestal. Here is photo of the statue last year.  Schiller was an important German philosopher, poet and playwright who died in 1805.

There was also work going on on expanding the Japanese garden near the Conservatory using Ordway money, but that won't be done until the spring of 2013.

The Conservatory flower show was pretty good but anticlimactic.  The flowers - roses, hibiscus, sunflowers, etc - are still in bloom outside.  I have included one photo anyhow.

September is more than half gone and we're just a few days from the equinox again (September 22).  Soon enough I'll be pining for sweet September.