<\/p>\n

Chocolate is fattening, florist mark-ups are exorbitant, and restaurant reservations are impossible to get (not to mention that your Groupon won’t be honored even if you do snag a table).<\/p>\n

Fortunately, nature supplies a lot of wonderful valentines for free, at least for those of us lucky enough to live in the San Francisco Bay Area. The run-up to Valentine’s Day here is always my favorite time of year because it’s our spring, with an incredible display bursting forth.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the\u00a0confections I’ve been enjoying\u00a0on my walks around town this week:<\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div>

<\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

*<\/p>\n

What is your favorite no-calorie Valentine freebie?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chocolate is fattening, florist mark-ups are exorbitant, and restaurant reservations are impossible to get (not to mention that your Groupon won’t be honored even if you do snag a table). Fortunately, nature supplies a lot of wonderful valentines for free, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A treat for today:\r\nNature's Valentines","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[8],"tags":[145,489],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2F8Ch-nj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1463,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shrinkrapped.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}