The mind of the palta (avocado) tree

I has always thought that trees have innate intelligence, but one of our two avocado trees is doing its best to prove me wrong. The last time it bore fruit heavily, it had so much weight on this branch that I had to put a board underneath so that it wouldn’t break. And now this.

A little skinny twig forks, one side becoming hugely thicker, then doing a 180 and growing upwards.

Really. Where did this tree go to school?

Hot.

Hot today. This in the shade in our back yard.

Very few people on the beach midday (considerably more at 6 PM when I drove by again). Except for the utter lack of waves, the river that doesn’t flow* looked like an ocean with that extremely rare blue hue today.

*for the locals, the estuary of the Rio de la Plata is a river. Don’t even try…it’s non-negotiable.

Debugging

No, not tech. Clearing out the under-counter corner cabinet, we found all sorts of critters infesting bags put away with just a rubber band, plus an unopened infested bag of Quaker Oats and bulgur wheat from (not the first time!) La Abundancia.

Tiny snake

At the end of our driveway I found this little guy heading into the road, and encouraged him to keep moving. Lots of traffic with a mini-market next door, and unfortunately a lot of ignorant Uruguayans will kill any snake por las dudas (just in case). making no effort to determine if it’s a threat.

Best I can guess is it’s an immature Culebra de Peñarol.