Venice was perfection. I'm so excited to tell you all about it, but I'm still organizing photos and sifting through my impressions. Please check back next week to read about the restaurants, the markets, the parties and the romance of one of the world's most glorious cities. We returned home to a word in full flower. I had been hoping to see some black locust trees in bloom this year, as I have read about the wonderfully fragrant edible flowers, and suddenly there they were by the dozens as we drove through Paramus, New Jersey, en route from the airport. Serendipity!
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A-foraging I went and I didn't find one thing I was hoping for. No morels, no edible fiddleheads, not a single solitary ramp. And yet, it was truly a glorious day. The mighty Delaware, full of silt stirred up by the recent rains, is flowing the color of milky coffee. Eighty degrees out, with gentle breezes, fluffy cumulus clouds like globs of marshmallow cream in a Tiffany blue sky. The kind of weather sure to rouse even the drowsiest bear and summon the rattlesnakes from their stony bowers. I confess, I devoted a fair amount of mental energy conjuring up scenarios in which I was lunch. A trio of turkey vultures circling overhead didn't help matters much. But in the end, I was sufficiently distracted by all the green living things teeming on the forest floor.
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