Requiem for a Tender Avocado Seedling (aka the Wrath of ‘Coon)

Avocado by Jaanus Silla (CC-BY 2.0)

One (or perhaps more) of the raccoon raiders/looters in the backyard laid waste to one of our precious three avocado plants a week ago, viciously tearing it apart at the base and rending the seed in two before it (the seedling, not the raccoon) had reached the tender age of three. All that cooing and coaxing for nothing!

As much as they look like the Lone Ranger, these are nothing more than masked bandits and the most thoughtless dispensers of injustice; first, they (repeatedly)

A Joint Spirograph-and-Bokeh Moment

A different way to shoot a Monkey Puzzle tree — the emanating and repeating star pattern reminds me of a finished Solitaire game, when the cards are bouncing all over the place. Any way you shoot it, the Monkey Puzzle tree looks spiky.