D.O.P.-T.

[weofodthignen]

More rain last night and today. The sidewalk on the corner is covered in leafy twigs and half-eaten avocados from the squirrels.

Comments

[cowboy_r]

There are avocado trees in your neighborhood, and people don't pick 'em?

[weofodthignen]

Hardly anybody picks anything. In one spot there's a row of small gingko trees growing in the grass beside a public parking lot, and one year I came upon an Asian couple gathering the cherry-sized fruits they produce: he was shaking the tree and she was picking them up. This year, again, they just lie there in the grass. The old apple tree bravely bears a few fruits most years, although it constantly gets pruned back so it doesn't protrude over the sidewalk; this year the house was sold, so they redid the front yard and put in a new fence and irrigation system first, and the roots got chopped and the street side of the tree is dead now. Nobody ever seems to pick the apples. And there are a number of Mayer lemons and oranges in front yards, though most are in back yards, and it's of course rude and probably illegal to pick one, though I imagine a few people do. But that avocado tree is huge; you'd need a cherry picker to get the avocados. Besides, squirrels tend to knock them down before they're ripe. So the ancient ecosystem goes on, with the difference that the fruit almost all falls on sidewalk concrete or street blacktop. Same as the acorns in the remaining oaks, some of which are also huge; the natives used to make flour out of the acorns, but now they rain all over the landscape and only the squirrels harvest and glean them.