The Gall

Here's my new bae Andricus quercusstrobilanus, Mom. He's a fake pine cone that is in fact a gall, the space station of a gall wasp parasitical on oak trees. Fairly rare to see them so fresh and orange; usually they're seen and photographed in the dryish brown stage. I was just lucky, I guess. It was my moment. Their months are July and August and they seem to like wet, steamy weather. Is that more than you wanted to know, Mom?

Mom, did you ever imagine that your kid (nay, the fruit of your womb) would be curious about, like, strange growths like fungi, galls and slimes? Kind of be a geek about them? Wondering what the heck this planet has in this walk-in closet called reality? Remember spanking me with a hairbrush?

Strange Harvest

The lone pear tree on the property, planted by idealistic former tenants, every year raises not only my hopes but excites the opossums, squirrels, maggots, birds and bugs around here. Enraptured by the spring blossoms, we watch amazed as they form green pears that gain weight all summer. Then the animals get them all. Except this year they left them for me. It's a plentiful harvest, but they're all bizarre and deformed like these:

The problem could be 1) Leafroller worms chewing on the buds back in spring, creating oddly-shaped pears and bronze-colored scabbing. 2) Another kind of worm, and we had a plague of army worms in May. 3) Fruit fungus (thus the brownish-black patch on the middle pear). 4) Fukushima. A photo of a pear grown this year near Fukushima, Japan, found online, looks a lot like these.