Faust Park #1

As the title suggests there is going to be at least one more post with photos from Faust Park so you might want to know a little about it.  The park is a St. Louis County park, about 16 miles from my house.  In addition to normal modern suburban park amenities, it has some historical features including a historical carousel

The St. Louis Carousel was installed in St. Louis at the Forest Park Highland in 1929.  The cost was $30,000 which is about $500,000 in 2021 dollars.  The carousel was large with sixty horses and four deer and two sleighs.  The amusement park burnt down in 1963 but fortunately the carousel was not badly damaged.  To shorten a long story, the carousel eventually came to the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation who had it restored and placed in a climate controlled building to help insure its preservation.  A not for profit corporation was formed to raise funds and other means of support for the carousel’s continued maintenance and restoration.  The St. Louis Carousel offers rides for a ticket price of $2.00 which to me seems fairly reasonable.

For me, the attraction to Faust Park is the large pond near the Butterfly House (a major attraction of the park) and the garden on the grounds of the Butterfly House.  The pond is on park grounds in front of the Butterfly House and between it and the house is a large garden area.  The pond attracts dragonflies and the garden always has pollinators buzzing about plus other insects.  Prior to COVID there were two years in a row when I managed to get a couple of good shots of a large grasshopper in a section of the garden near the pond.

I usually go to the park once a year and usually it is in late summer.  Why just once and in late summer?  Because I always forget about it and when it does come to mind I tell myself I need to get out there, and then forget until it is almost too late.  The garden that is on the Butterfly House grounds requires you to pay admission to the Butterfly House. The Butterfly House is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden and since my wife and I are members, we get in for free.

One year I forget my MoBot Garden ID card so I limited myself to the “free garden” out front.  My house is twenty-five to thirty minutes away from the park.  If I had gone home to get it the card that would have totaled about two hours of driving for thirty to forty-five minutes of photography.

So here are some photos from St. Louis County’s Faust Park.

 

Purple coneflower.  This used to be one of my favorite flowers to photograph, partly because of the large size of its flower head.  Now I am starting to get bored with it and tend to photograph it just because it’s there.  This particular purple coneflower is in its prime.

 

This particular purple coneflower is not in its prime.

 

Honey bee on a compass plant.

 

I don’t know what this flower is but it you squint your eyes and make it blurry, it looks like it is cheering you on with pom poms, or it is glad to see you.

 

Bumble bee on compass plant.

 

Carpenter bee on a purple coneflower.

 

An unknow leaf that appears to be in the shadow of the African continent.

 

Thank you for stopping by.

David

All photos taken with a Nikon D7100 and a Sigma 105mm macro lens.