Hi,

I spoke about Snook Islands here in Lake Worth in my last post and had a picture from afar of what they planted on these man made islands to lessen the effects of a storm surge with a hurricane.  I went to Mounts Botanical Garden.  All those things you see on the bottom are not branches, but individual roots anchoring the trees.  Here’s a closer of look of how their roots anchor into the soil that gives them such resilience to a storm surge:

mangrove trees

Also I got a got a red copper leaf plant.  Here’s my new little baby:

south-florida-plant-guide

Mounts have an installation they just completed.  It took over 650 volunteers months to create this out of willow branches and switches:

mounts botanical gardens

Kind of reminds me of something out of the movie Beetlejuice.

To anyone living or visiting the WPB area, my friends Darcy & Steve took me  to Haos Noodles Asian restaurant.  They insisted on ordering their favorite for me.  We all got it baked rice, beef and vegetables and they ordered it hot and spicy which made me a bit nervous because I like flavorful, but not hot and spicy.  I have had hot and spicy at Nicky’s Thai Kitchen down the street and it was unpleasant.  This Beef Stone Bowl was extremely hot (it’s cooked at 500 degrees) but not overly spicy.  It’s cooked so hot and long that the rice along the edges of the stone bowl turn out like flavored rice cakes.

John, was an interior designer in NYC and some art gallery owner bought a house down here and brought him down to  do the interior while I still owned The Parador of the Palm Beaches.  He was here in the winter and when he went back to NYC in the winter decided to move to S Florida.  He settled in Ft  Lauderdale. He stayed at my Inn and we’ve stayed friends, so when I come down, I try and  spend some time with him.  Last year we went to Vizcaya Gardens and the Coral Castle.  So this year we went to Monkey Jungle.  Monkey Jungle is where the monkeys run free and the humans are in cages (actually caged hallways).  Thees  are  three of my favorite Florida attractions.  I have no interest in Disney Land, Universal, etc up in Orlando for one thing I’m  no longer 8 years old and mainly I hate the crowds and all the pushing  and shoving.  Here’s where they give their lectures at Monkey Jungle with the main monkeys originally brought from Java:

monkey jungle homestead florida

 

Francis Norwalk  called me yesterday and my chandelier from the main dining room  is finished. I’ve had it rebuilt with American standard light sockets instead of the European sized sockets that needed a collar to fit light bulbs.  They also cleaned the insides of the glass base and removed dirty plastic dividers and replaced them with metal washers returning it to a more original appearance.  Francis is such a nice guy, he’s in his 90’s and doesn’t have a website, but he is acknowledged in Google Places.

A few more days  down here and then  up to visit my brother in Tampa and then back to PGH to get the Inn ready for Valentines day.  Have you made your reservations yet?  🙂

Take care,

ed