A weekend with Cousin Tom - Part 2

40 Days in Brooklyn: Day 33

Saturday, Oct 22. This morning was rainy and cold so we had to forego one of the things on Tom’s list—walking the High Line, an elevated train rail that’s been converted to a park/walking trail. What’s more, the camera store he wanted to visit was closed for the Jewish holiday Sukkot, so we couldn’t do that either. Undeterred, I cooked us a couple omelets for breakfast (and neither of us died. Yay!) put the liner inside my coat, donned my hat and gloves and we headed out the door at around 10 am.

We started at the Brooklyn library because it’s such an unusual building.  The outside has giant gold figures on the pillars flanking the doors—mythical creatures, Roman-Greco gods, philosophers, whales, dinosaurs and more. (When he was here, my friend Chis wondered how much you have to donate to be able to say “I want a gold Socrates, a gold naked chick and a gold dinosaur at the front door. Make it so.”) 

To the left of the entrance

To the right.

Lovely words

Unfortunately, the inside of the library resembles an 80’s office building. And the Brooklyn Room was closed. 

On a side note, I've just recently discovered the HBO series High Maintenance, about a NYC marijuana delivery guy. I saw that he was inside the Brooklyn Library on one of the shows and felt more connected to the show because I actually recognized many of the locations. 

Disappointed by the Brooklyn Library's interior experience, Tom and I  walked over to the farmer’s market across the street where I wandered around as Tom took some pretty pictures of produce. 

The farmers market at Grand Army Plaza

Tom's Swiss Chard

Tom's Romanesco

Tom's Carrots

We sampled 682 varieties of apples, bought 2 Honeycrisp and 2 Suncrisp and moved on.

On the left, Honey Crisp. On the right, Sun Crisp.
Me? I'm a Honey Crisp girl.

We then took a walk through Prospect Park where all the leaves are changing. Now in his day-to-day life, Tom is an arborist so he identified all the trees as we walked by, reciting their proper Latin names which, as any girl will tell you, is a total turn-on. I collected leaves and then pressed them when I got back to the apartment.

Prospect Park. The red trees are Sugar Maples.

Not sure how to get them home in one piece, but I'm determined.

.

We then walked up through Windsor Terrace to Green Wood Cemetery. (Yes, again. What can I say? It’s an amazing place.) This was my third visit there and I saw things I hadn’t seen before. Like…

• The grave of Henry Chadwick, also known as “the Father of Baseball”…

The orb on top has baseball stitches carved into it.

People actually leave baseballs on his grave. How cool is that?

• The fact that nearly all the streets are named for trees…

Recall quiz: What's Tom do for a living?

• The statue of Minerva, the Roman goddess of Wisdom, commemorating the long-slighted Battle of Long Island in the Revolutionary War. Charles M Higgins, an Irish immigrant and history buff, built the altar in 1920 and according to the Atlas Obscura website: "…perhaps anticipating that Minerva might get lonely at the top, he made sure she had a friend nearby: Minerva's waving hand is reciprocated directly 3.5 miles to the west by Lady Liberty's upraised torch."

Minerva on Battle Hill

Notice the Statue of Liberty in the distance

• And just some other beautiful sights through the lens of Tom's camera…

Battle Hill War Memorial

The Green Wood Chapel

Stained Glass inside the Chapel

It was quite a windy and chilly day and after a couple hours in the cemetery, we were cold. So we left the cemetery, walked back down through Windsor Terrace and stopped for a late lunch at the Windsor Café.

Super cute space

And ridiculously large portion sizes. These were my leftovers.

But the big hit of the day was the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. We'd originally planned to do the Brooklyn Museum next door but once we saw the Garden, we just had to go. We went back to the apartment to get the free guest passes the apartment owner left us and then we spent the rest of the day there until it closed at 6pm.

You may have already seen my Study in Tree Bark that I posted on Facebook and will probably end up on my walls at home, but here are some of the other photos I particularly like.

Weeping Hemlock

Caucasian Wingnut. (The name sounds like an insult, right?)

It was almost completely hollow inside

"Hey Julie, this tree has your dad's nose." —Tom Bowman

Tom's camera catching all the fall colors

Courtesy of Tom Bowman

When Tom was taking a shot of the ground I didn't get it.
Now I see how cool it is.

And one more that shows Tom's good eye.

This sculpture is made of painted cedar logs and
is constructed without fasteners. Only gravity holds it all together.

Didn't get the name of this tree, but I believe it's some kind of Beech.
Every time I fell in love with a tree, it turned out to be a Beech.

Wild strawberry pod with bright orange seeds

The tropicals section on borrowed time. The first frost is not far off.

Torch Lily

I couldn't help myself.

A water tree in the hothouse water garden

One of the beautiful specimens in the Bonsai exhibit

One incredibly old bonsai tree that, sadly, died.
It is as impressive in death as it must have been in life.

Tom's amazing close-up of the same bonsai

When the Botanical Garden closed at 6, we were cold and damp and ready to go home. But they still had to run us out of the park—it was that spectacular. On the way home, we picked up Chinese food because what’s better than Hot & Sour Soup when you’re cold? 

And there, Tom and I learned our final lesson of the day:

“He who harangues the woman behind the counter
gets enough Duck Sauce to choke on.”