Chunky season

Our second crop of figs began ripening a few weeks ago, and we are overwhelmed with them, as we are every summer. Steve picks them and eats them with his cereal every morning. We give them away to friends and neighbors by the bagful. Still our beautiful old tree is so heavily laden that the figs rain down. We rake them up and discard them the way folks in other parts of the country rake of autumn leaves. More fall almost immediately.

This is Tucker's favorite time of the year. He sits by the closed door and whines to be let out, so that he can go harvesting. We're pretty sure he's eaten so many figs on one or two occasions that he has thrown up -- like a toddler overdoing it on candy. He's nonetheless looking notably chunkier. We think he's gained at least five pounds.

Digesting his fig supplements

So that Dionne won't follow his lead, and to discourage her from getting in the habit of eating anything and everything on the ground, we have kept up our program of extremely limited time for her outside off-leash. Still, she's getting wise to these restrictions. She's learned that these strange objects on the ground are SWEET! They fill your tummy. True, they get a little dusty, but when they dry in the sun, they taste like FIG NEWTONS! (Actually, she has no idea what a Fig Newton is. She just knows what she likes.)

She tells us daily that she has absolutely no interest in watching her figure.  She'd love to get chunky.