While I am in the process of working on a few more Las Vegas entries, I thought I’d share this photo of my favorite tree in town. I think this is a weeping cherry, and a very old one at that. It takes up the entire front yard with its enormous girth. Its owners have a sense of humor too, as they decorate the tree on each holiday with the appropriate trappings for that particular holiday.

I remember last year when we moved here it was over the Easter weekend, and the tree was in full bloom with Easter eggs dangling from its branches. This year Easter came early and the tree was not yet in bloom. For whatever reason they chose not to decorate it for Easter this year. The last ornaments that hung from it were shamrocks. I have vowed to take a photo of it every time they decorate it from now on. Maybe that will be the 4th of July?

The only blooming trees we have are the shad trees in the woods. They are plentiful around our area, and the first trees to come out. The wooded hills are dotted with splashes of white.

Another tree at the egde of the woods [as yet unidentified], appears to be going to bloom, but it might be just leaves. Hard to tell, but it looks like a blossom coming to me.

The skunk cabbage (at least that’s what I call it) is starting to take over the ground in the woods where it’s boggy. Soon the large ferns will be up and the whole area will turn into a lush jungle.

We’ve had a little rain each day over the past week and our grass is getting greener and greener. Soon Johnny will need to be put back into service. The grass seed that I strew about 3 weeks ago on the spots where the dogs have worried the ground bare, is now sprouting and growing like crazy. Our woods are taking on a green fuzziness, and it changes on a daily basis. Soon our neighbor’s house will be obscured behind a solid curtain of green and we won’t be able to see our back gate anymore. It happens so gradually over time that you can’t really say when it happened.

I welcome the wooded privacy wholeheartedly, even if it means I can’t see the birds in the trees anymore, or if the bears are there. At first it will seem strange to be so closed in, but we will soon be used to it. Just like we adjusted when the trees became bare, leaving us feeling naked and exposed to the world.

The changing of the seasons is such a wonderful thing. It keeps us from becoming stale and stagnant and pushes us forth to do different things than we have been doing over the past months. Instead of sitting by a cozy fire in the evening and watching TV, we’ll be sitting out on our deck or having dinner down by the pool. I’ll be swimming laps in the morning instead of sitting here writing drivel for you to read. My neighbor Kim has already commissioned me for morning walks. I hope to learn how to play tennis as well. Ahh, I can’t wait! I look forward to throwing off the inactivity and sluggishness of winter and embracing the new season!

I just love forsythia, don’t you? I mean, what’s not to love? Bright, cheery-yellow, shining beacons of light—everywhere. I have never seen so much forsythia as we have here in New Jersey. It seemingly grows wild along roadsides and at the edge of woodlands. It pops up in almost everyone’s yard.

For most of the year it hides behind its homogeneous green exterior and you don’t even know that it’s there. It patiently waits, keeping its secret to itself. Just wait, it says, you’ll see that I’m not just another bush come spring. Just wait ...

And then VOILÀ!—it bursts forth in a glorious array of yellow that glows from within. And you think to yourself: huh, I didn’t know that was a forsythia.

No matter if its exuberance is contained and restrained as in our trimmed hedge ...

... or left to wild abandon along a neighbor’s property line

... growing wild by roadsides and at the edge of woods

... or its lovely sprays cut and brought inside to brighten the sideboard,

forsythia is certain to delight the senses. Soon, it will don its summer coat of green and once again blend into the background until it surprises us all over again next spring.

For some of you, I apologize in advance. The beautiful fountain display at the Bellagio is probably old news to you if you’ve ever been to Vegas. For me, it was an astounding experience. I had tears in my eyes watching this amazing show of water, light, and music. Amazingly, on the night we were able to view them, it featured a favorite of mine: Andreas Bocelli. The show was uplifting, and it transported me beyond expectations. I took this video with my new tiny camera (all hand-held!). I was very pleased with its nighttime quality.

I used YouTube because some people were having trouble viewing my QuickTime vids, but I think the quality suffered a bit. In the future, I want to continue to embed QuickTime in my blog since YouTube compresses them further. If you are having difficulty with all the videos playing concurrently when you open my blog, you need to change your setting. Just go into your QuickTime application and in “Preferences” under “Movies” make sure that the option “automatically play movies when opened” is not checked. Please let me know if this solves your problem!

In the meantime, please sit back, turn up the volume on your computer, and relax. This video lasts about 3 minutes. Enjoy.

The Bellagio is a beautiful hotel. Not only is it home to the wonderful fountains, but also to a unique creation that is installed in the ceiling of the lobby: Fiori de Como, or “flowers of the lake.” World-renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly created thousands of brightly colored, hand-blown, glass sculptures and brought them all together in a magnificent work of art. Larger on one end than the other, it spills over the ceiling in a riot of color, demanding your full attention.


To me it has the shape of a huge flower basket [narrower at the bottom and flaring out at the top] that is spilling over with flowers. In actuality, in the eyes of its creator, he sees it as a kind of sea form. Whatever you see when you look at it, you are bound to see beauty.