The first time I moved to California I was living in Riverside, in the desert just outside of L.A. It was during a bad drought and it only rained twice during the whole year I was there. It was 95 degrees Fahrenheit on Christmas Day. But with no moisture in the air it felt less…

If there’s one thing you should know about me it’s that I love frogs. Frogs are just the best. Do you know why we think frogs say “ribbit?” Most frogs make some sort of a croaking noise, or if you’re on the east coast you might hear “peepers.” But there’s one type of frog in…

Fun fact: chickens are literally dinosaurs. They are direct descendants of the same group of dinosaurs as the T-rex which survived the mass extinction event. It’s likely that the T-rex also had similar feathers, but early drawings of them didn’t account for this and Hollywood decided to just keep depicting bald dinosaur hide in films…

For the third piece in this citrus series, I had to add a lime. Although limes also grow everywhere in California, I decided to travel back to the east coast and take this one to the Florida Keys. Towns like Key West have become famous tourist destinations for their great weather and beautiful beaches, and…

For the second piece in this series after lemon, I wanted to continue the theme of citrus fruit! Much like lemons, oranges trees are all over California, which was very exciting to me after growing up on the east coast. But I think oranges are a more accessible and familiar fruit. Most families buy a…

I’ve always been a big fan of lemons, and growing up on the east coast they were considered fancy and exotic. Only rich people bought actual lemons to keep in their fridge. Us poor people occasionally would buy a bottle of lemon juice to use sparingly and keep it in the fridge for a year.…