Pomegranates, Family & Rain

This weekend, Cousin Lisa and her fiance Brent made their annual pilgrimage to our home to seed pommagranates and make jelly. This year's crop was huge and the seeds were so sweet and dark, they were almost black.

We must have hand-seeded over 30 pommagranates and Chloe pitched in too. Her little fingers were quicker and more dexterous than Moms. She was a big help and she was even neater than Mom, who kept dropping the seeds on the floor and then tracking them around the kitchen. After filtering out the seed pits and pulp, we were left with over 20 cups of pure juice. Lisa and Brent left for home with 10 jars of jelly, about 15 giant pommagranates and 6 cups of juice. We have the same amount on our end.

Brent is a talented photographer, so Mommaratzi took the weekend off and asked Brent to take pictures of the girls. I am including a few of the shots. We also had some rain and did a little bird watching. Our trees are loaded with nearly a hundred birds. The turkey vultures roost in our Eucalyptus tree, about 40 of them. On the other side of our yard in the pine trees, white egrets noisily jockey for the best positions. I think there are close to 50 of them. Winter is a fun time to watch these large beautiful birds.