Cardinal flowers

After a busy weekend, celebrating the arrival of NCW in a new decade, I came back to St Paul. The Prairie Princess was here and this afternoon we decided to take a walk over by Como Park, a place that she hasn't visited in the summer in two years. It has changed a bit, but the important spots are still there. As it turns out there are quite a few cardinal flowers growing in various spots around the lake, and so I was able to join the other bloggers who have graced their blogs with photos of this flower.  Now five of us have seen them lately.

There are monarch butterflies in the area. On our walk in Como, around the lake and through the butterfly garden, past innumerable milk weeds, we encountered a grand total of three monarchs. It's a slow year for them apparently after last year's drought in much of the USA. I caught this guy on a flower near the north end of Como Lake.

It was a quiet day at Como today. School is in session, so there were no field trips yet, and the only other activity in this pleasant September evening were other walkers and a school of karate students breaking boards near the Schilling statue - not pictured here.