What are you up to?

[brianvds]

And here I thought you lived in Cleveland. Either way, you probably have nice fall colors.

Around here, various species of maple are also used as street trees. But maple syrup is either all imported, or fake (I'm tempted to say, AI-generated maple syrup).

And speaking of maples, there's a Japanese maple growing in my landlady's garden here, right in front of the little garden apartment in which her father lives. Some years ago, on a whim, he planted an avocado seed right under it. The seed germinated, but what with this and that he never got around to transplanting it to a more suitable spot, so in a desperate attempt to get some light, it grew taller and taller, until it grew right through the maple and poked out at the top, leading to this somewhat bizarre situation:

Well, weird or not, at summer's end every year, we have more avocados than we know what to do with. It's quite a chore to harvest them; the old man props up a long ladder into the tree, and if we don't stop him, he's up there harvesting (he's 91 this year!). So helping out with the avocado harvest is one of those things I do. It's quite worth it - some years the harvest is somewhat modest; this year we got a big wheelbarrow full. At the current supermarket price of avocados, having such a tree is like having a money tree in the garden.

 

[Hermes2020]

Brian, is there a way to preserve avocados?

 

[brianvds]

Brian, is there a way to preserve avocados?

I don't know. They'll last a while in the fridge, but thus far, I simply eat them fresh until I feel I can't face another avo for a year, then give away the rest to friends and colleagues!

In the meantime, had occasion yesterday to go attend a Japanese cultural festival in Pretoria, put on by the Japanese embassy. It was quite a fun and educational outing, with exhibits of everything from bonsai (the fine art of stunting tree growth:

ikebana (the fine art of arranging pretty bits and pieces in minimalist fashion):

kimonos (the fine art of making servant girls look like princesses):

I think StLukes will like these patterns:

iaido (the fine art of unsheathing a sword, as demonstrated by this Liam Neeson lookalike):

and finally, kendo (the fine art of hitting people over the head with a stick):

Eventually there was also some dancing around in a circle; I took a few seconds of video:

On the whole, Japan can be proud of its embassy.

 

[brianvds]

A few highlights from one of my regular early morning walks around the block here...

Definitely getting winterish now, but it has its own beauties - I liked this little mini-scene because it reminded me of a Chinese brush painting, or perhaps a Japanese woodblock print:

On my route there is a specific tree which catches the morning sun, and it is usually packed with doves warming up. But not this particular morning, and I soon saw why:

A little sparrowhawk. It is not unheard of to see them in the city, but it is rather unusual. Anyway, they hunt other birds, including doves, which explains the empty tree!

I'm always on the lookout for nature's own abstract art:

And a sunbird, our local version of the hummingbirds of the New World, though the two groups are apparently not closely related: