Picnic with the Pixies

Whew! I am totally exhausted, but it was such a fun time. And imperfections and all, I am very happy with how my whole "look" came out. It's hard for a perfectionist to say, but I think I'm satisfied.

All of these pictures but one are courtesy of Jennifer Thompson. Thank you, Jen! You can see many more at her Flickr here.

In typical Texas fashion, the weather was totally unpredictable.  March has rapidly warmed up around here. Temperatures in the 80s, strong winds, both humidity and dry weather, lead to severe thunderstorms and grassfire threats. And then the wind shifts around violently and we're cold again.

We hit 88F on March 4, and were back up in the 80s last weekend. (With several cold fronts in between.) Then several weak cold fronts kept us in the 60s with lots of clouds and humidity, and a looming threat of the most rain on Saturday. We played it by ear, kept in touch by Facebook, and went for it.

Saturday morning I woke up to a thunderstorm.  I only got a little rain for all the noise it made, and it seemed likely that the actual storms would be done by mid-morning.  It stayed cloudy and chilly, with a high of only 54F, but all we had were sprinkles!  We had a good turnout, including adults, children, dogs, and dolls! and a lovely spread of munchies. The Grapevine Botanic Gardens had a nice pavilion setup with benches and a podium, and plenty of walks for strolling and pictures. No one sat on the ground, but even then it was only slightly muddy.

When Jen arrived, she and Erin and I wandered around together, taking pictures and playing at posing. It was fun! The guidelines and ideas I had made posing SO much easier, although I still really relied on Jen to tell me where to turn. White space in particular is hard to achieve by yourself.

I took this one!

Jen got lots of good pictures, some with my wings, and more without them.

I admit I took the wings off fairly early. I think I need more confidence wearing them! It was also cold and I really wanted to wear a shawl.

Erin found a wonderful arbor for posing. Are those honeysuckle?

In one area of the gardens was a big tree surrounded by a fence.

There's a plaque in front of the tree, put there in 1987. It commemorates that this tree (which we think is a post oak) was alive in 1787, the year the U.S. Constitution was signed. So neat! Most of North Texas is prairie, or former prairie, so old trees are unusual.

Cold, drizzle, and all, it was a great day!