Outdoor Living

A view from above shows the vast expanse to explore at Frederik Meijer.

There are impressive art sculptures at Frederik Meijer Gardens. A T le of Three Gardens

In our quest to get outside during the global pandemic, we turned to local and regional gardens to explore nature, enjoy exercise, and revel in beauty. We started our garden tale right in Middlebury at Krider World’s Fair Garden. This 2.4-acre garden and park has it all! The park has a few sculptures, including the windmill and toadstools, a couple of small ponds, a well-tended quilt garden, and a picturesque stream. Native plants blend in beautifully with typical garden plants. On our visit, we found the tadpoles the Middlebury Parks Department shared about on social media – thousands in a small pool of water. What fun to see up close. We enjoy the intimacy and easy access of this garden. The price is right at free! Soon after, we made a trip to Wellfield Botanic Gardens in Elkhart. Wearing masks through the cottage garden, we had plenty of room on the 36 acres to socially distance from other parties. We enjoyed the 20 different gardens, taking a detour off the main path for the native woodland garden. We loved the new Japanese garden with many bridges, rocks, and architecture wonders to explore – it was my boys’ favorite part. We have always enjoyed the bird walks, children’s garden, adventure path, and story walk through the gardens. We found fish nests in the shallows of the ponds. This year’s origami crane quilt garden is a must see. We have a family membership here, although it is free on Tuesdays for county residents in the spring and summer. Our next stop was Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids, Mich. This 158-acre facility with a tropical conservatory, carnivorous plants, arid garden, looming statement-making sculptures, and huge Japanese gardens was impressive. This is truly a destination adventure with many options for exploring. The boys enjoyed the children’s sensory Middlebury is home to a beautiful spot with Krider Garden.

Wellfield is always picturesque.

garden, large treehouse, and finding froglets in the Japanese garden. Our Wellfield membership saved us the cost of two adult tickets. Each garden visit was a unique part of our summer tale. We were able to socially distance outside, experience beautiful spaces, immerse ourselves in nature, and spend time as a family. Whether you enjoy your backyard garden, a world’s fair garden, a prominent county garden, or a premier regional garden, we encourage you to make a garden part of your pandemic tale.

Dr. Carla Gull blogs at www.insideoutsidemichiana.com and podcasts as Loose Parts Nature Play. She is often seen with her four tag-along explorers in the greater Michiana area.

by Gloria Salavarria Our first home in Middleburywas in a wooded area and the choice of home was Joe’s fault, not mine. Still, I was content with his choice but for two things: one was that it was a two-story and I knew two-story homes would not be well-suited to us as we grew older and two, we couldn’t sit out back on our deck and enjoy even being there during the daylight hours because of a whining little bloodsucking insect known as a mosquito! It is the females, not the males, that drive us crazy. Males exist only to fertilize the female and then they drop dead. The females are the only ones that have a proboscis that they can use to penetrate our skin and suck blood up into themselves which she, in turn, will use our blood protein to produce the eggs in order to hatch her young. So why, after my husband passed away and I sold our first house in Middlebury, did I buy a second home in Middlebury that is right next door to a wooded area that is also the flood plain ofthe Little Elkhart River—also known as mosquito heaven? Yes. When I sit on this home’s deck, it’s over

eight feet above the ground and mosquitos don’t fly that high and so I am happy. Still, I was puzzled by something I saw when Joe and I lived in our first house. Shortly after I’d sit down in my lounge chair on the deck, a mosquito would start orbiting my head and one time, I had forgotten to bring the bug spray out with me so I got up and started walking back to the house but as I passed Joe, this miserable insect suddenly left me and started bothering Joe instead. I could have felt insulted, but instead, I was relieved and glad to be rid of this miserable little sucker! As to why Joe and not me, I couldn’t figure that out but Joe took pride in the fact that this female found him to be more desirable than me. I should have taken offense at this but I just was very glad to get rid of this irksome insect! At the time, I thought this was just a quirk –something that wouldn’t happen again but no, it happened again and again throughout the summer. As to why the mosquitos loved Joe more than me, I never found out until I looked at our

CELEBRATING

YEARS 1910-2020

local newspaper this morning and there it was, an article on what attracts mosquitos… Well, I had never been pregnant, and I wasn’t all that fond ofalcohol. The only point where I would be considered attractive to this miserable insect is the fact that I have Type O blood. Joe, on the other hand, was a man who was fond of alcohol and never went out to sit on our deck without first making himselfa martini. Yes, he often was sweaty as we would relax on the deck after we had worked hard –and he worked up more of a sweat than I did while doing our accounting. Joe’s blood type was AB and mine was the more desirable Type O. Still, Joe had three of the five things that attracted this whiny, winged nuisance and I had only one and so he was far more attractive to mosquitos than I was. I do miss Joe –not just because he kept the mosquitos from bothering me but because he was so willing to put up with the likes of me in the many moves that we had to make on account ofmycareer. Now I’m retired, a widow and alone, but just the other day, I rode a total of 26 miles on my recumbent trike to the town of Goshen and back to Middlebury through a predominantly wooded area known as the Pumpkinvine Nature Trail, a popular tourist and cyclist attraction here in Elkhart County.

Yes, there are still a lot of mosquitos out there in the wooded sections along the trail but I move too fast for them to catch up with me and tomorrow, I’ll be riding that same distance again but this time I’ll stop at my favorite pizzeria, Venturi’s in Goshen, and get a genuine Neapolitan pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms.

Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, I’ll use my cellphone to call in my order while I’m on the trail, and then I’ll swing by and pick up my “carryout” pizza as the restaurant is not open for dining –just carryout. It will be me who does the biting, and then I’ll return to Middlebury with my leftover pizza, moving fast enough again so that I won’t be the one getting bitten.