Last week, we were in Forest Park and came upon an Asian man. Probably a student, he wanted to show us what he had found. Beneath a park bench was a paper wasp nest. Initially, I thought that it was old and abandoned, but upon further study, I discovered that it was still under construction. You can see the adult wasps crawling over it. According to Wiki they are relatively beneficial, not too aggressive, plus they eat other insects. It was somewhat difficult to photograph them; I had to crawl beneath the bench to get this shot.

Today, we walked in Forest Park, and the signs of last May’s tornado were evident everywhere. It was a beautiful day, with more still late summer rather than fall weather yet. It was very sunny and driving down Wydown towards the park, it was more brilliant than before due to all of the missing downed trees. Shade was a scarce commodity all day. Plus, more than a few of the stately mansions that line that boulevard with their slate and tile roofs that cost more than our house were still sporting white plastic “shower caps” atop their rooflines. Roofs like these are not built in a day. We parked by the Muny, next to this weekend’s Evolution music festival. Walking, I quickly gave up counting stumps. Supposedly 3,000 trees were lost in the park that day. We walked through and then out of the park to the Central Westend. On Euclid, we grabbed brunch at First Watch. Most of the felled trees have been cleared and replanting is well underway, but the girth of the large trunks still left speak of trees that were over a hundred years old. I will not see their like again.