Pomegranate Princess

From my own tree – one of several fruit last year,

this small pomegranate showed its broken heart…

Sadly enough, in the last few years, the severe drought has been bringing about massive invasions of gophers. And they have been chewing the roots of some of my fruit trees (fig, persimmon, pomegranate, strawberry fruit trees), and killed them. So I had to learn to live with “underground” wild life – swallowing up the poppies, California and red, nasturtiums. It is eerie to watch the plant being pulled down from beneath, slowly disappearing into earth, like a video of their growth in reverse :)  Gopher is a very clever and feisty creature. When gardening I will hear a bit of rustling, move in that direction, and there he with his beady eyes and two little front teeth, staring at me with defiantly. And we start a conversation and a little game of hide and seek. I argue for him to leave my trees alone. Of course there are many gophers, and their massive tunneling system is now everywhere.

This morning I see the truck of Got Gophers parked across the street. The neighbors, two houses over, have hundreds, and this exterminator company traps, kills, gets rid of them – but not really… Our long drought has made the gophers with their underground tunnels and cities too abundant. The hawks too have increased, and owls, foxes, coyotes. Nature is balancing itself often not in the short run, but in the long run….