Descanso Gardens

My cousin "C" and I went to Descanso Gardens this morning, one of our favorite places to walk. We got there a little after 9:00 and it was blazing hot already. I thought it was Fall! Ugh, I am so over this HOT weather. Tomorrow is the first of October and it's 100 degrees outside. I guess the weather is making up for the relatively mild summer we had.

Anyway, we started out and came upon the sustainable garden they have and saw the biggest squash we had ever seen. Some of them were taller than we are! They are "Italian Trombone Squash".

As we walked along, we noticed there were an awful lot of spiders - they were everywhere we looked it seemed, even way up between the trees. And they were rather big. I have arachnophobia, but I just had to get some pictures of these guys. My cousin said they are always around this time of year. I've never seen so many before. Boy, I'd hate to walk into one their webs, which are a little hard to see sometimes depending on the lighting. We made sure we were careful where we walked! One looked like it was getting ready to eat its "lunch"!

I was finally able to get pictures of a gorgeous Monarch Butterfly that landed on a butterfly bush - how fitting! I've always seen them fluttering around, but I've never been able to get pictures of one, until today! "C" calls them "little flying pieces of art" which I think is very poetic and a perfect description.

The rest of the pictures are of some of my favorite sights of the morning. I hope you enjoy them!