Pomegranate season

In past years, we didn't get many pomegranates on our tree, or if we did, the squirrels got them all. But this year, we've had a pomegranate bonanza. George made pomegranate juice, pomegranate molasses, pomegranate granita, and of course we have plenty of pomegranate arils. The pom molasses has graced much of the chicken and salmon we've eaten the last few weeks, and the arils have topped broccoli and wax beans as well as cereal and yogurt.

More local news stations come to our house to talk to George about the coyote

As the coyote story got more legs, both KTLA Channel 5 and NBC Channel 4 brought cameras to our house to interview George about the coyote, and he was on the nightly news on both those stations. Friends, co-workers, and others were telling George they had seen him on the news, including one friend in Sacramento who saw it on her local news station up there.

Meanwhile, a bobcat

Meanwhile, while George is waiting for the KTLA News folks to show up about the coyote, he looks out the kitchen window and there's a bobcat drinking out of our fountain!

Coyote goes viral, George at 11

Several neighbors had been sighting that coyote with the "kong" stuck on its jaw, and were becoming concerned, sharing conversations on NextDoor.com, where I had posted George's video. When George came home this evening, Channel 7 news was at the door and wanting to talk to him about the coyote. He ended up on the 11 o'clock news on Channel 7. Around 10:30 that night, CBS News called and they wanted permission to run the video too. Our coyote was going viral.

Coyote in distress

On Tuesday morning, George saw this coyote trying to drink out of our fountain. At first, he thought it was playing with a big dog chew toy, but he realized that the kong was actually stuck on the poor coyote's jaw and he couldn't get it off. After filming for a couple minutes, George went out to see if he could help, but the coyote ran off.

Our jacaranda is in bloom

We planted our jacaranda as a 15-gallon tree nine years ago. Last year was the first year we started to see some real hints of the famous purple flowers. This year it is finally coming into its own.

Apricots ripening

We play a game of "chicken" with our precious apricots. If we let them stay on the tree to ripen, we'll lose them to the squirrels and birds, so we let them stay on as long as we dare, pick them earlier than we'd prefer, and let them ripen in the window under Buddha's placid gaze. They are quite sweet and flavorful when they can ripen.

Apricots!

We planted our Katy apricot tree in 2002. It has never produced more than two or three apricots a year, which we unwillingly share with the birds and the squirrels. This year, after 17 years, we had an unexpectedly abundant crop! No idea if it was simply age, or last year's (lack of) pruning, or the late spring rains this year. But we're thrilled!

A Moroccan rug

While traveling in Morocco, we had been keeping an eye out for a good rug to go in our office. In the town of Tinghir, our guide brought us to shop offering carpets from women's collectives in the region. After looking at many, not finding the right size or colors, we finally came upon a beautiful carpet with some deep orange background and a blue-and-red medallion in the center. We bought it and hand-carried it home. Although we ultimately decided it didn't quite work in the office, it is now in our bedroom beside the bed.