Monkey Puzzle

The day after my mother died I went to Redwood Park in the late afternoon for some fresh air and space. The gloaming was too deep to get any drawing done, but I found under the two monkey puzzle trees a solitary seed. This tends to be somewhat rare, as the squirrels have a voracious appetite for them.

It was a couple years back that I found three seeds under the two trees and planted them, out of which one took. Now, it is this:



I was giving up on the seed which I most recently brought home. I had it planted in a little clay pot on top of the fridge. The pot kept getting some mould on the outside of it, and whenever I pulled out the seed to check for that wonderful sight of the white taproot coming out, my hopes were dashed, and there would be mould spots on the seed.

Just today, a bit more than a month and a half since planting, I pulled out the seed and found this:



And this afternoon I went to Redwood Park and hit the jackpot: