Up north this year, remembering the snowy winter of 2011, someone protected his trees. These are huge trees. They surround the property, each one shrouded in burlap. After sights like this, it's been freeing to bum around South Beach and see a man playing the violin in Flamingo Park.

And delightful to find this modest statue of Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America. He looks thoughtful among the baobab trees in Collins Park. It's been a day for strolling through parks.

It must be especially lucky to touch wood when it's the wood of the baobab tree.

The post office on 13th Street is embellished with the statue of a fish.

It is, I suppose, unfair to compare north and south, but up north we tend to tighten up, hunch our shoulders against the cold, and prepare for the worst. Yet there is such a thing as overprotection. I wonder how much it cost to wrap those large trees.