Pollen!

Here is a lovely picture of the "woodland" in our back yard. Note that the basis of this is a grove of escarpment live oak trees. And that they are very, very greenon the ends. That is because they are abloom, and when they are blooming they create extremely copious amounts of pollen. Today it is breezy, and you can see what looks like smoke coming from the trees whenever there is a gust.

(In the foreground you can see the absence of grass that was caused by how thick the trees used to be--that's where we planted grass seed, though much of it washed away in the flood day before yesterday. But some remained, so maybe we will have grass this year!)

This is the time of year in Austin when it is really futile to wash a car. In ten minutes it will become greenish yellow again, so why bother? Already the gazing balls and gnomes are yellow, though they are too far off to really see.

I am very, very proud of how the woodland looks right now. The understory trees are budding out, the inland sea oats are fairly high already, the wandering jew is poked out and turning purple, and the false indigo is nodding all over the places it has naturalized. What you do not see are blackberry vines, Virginia creeper or briars, because I have murderized them all, other than two decorative creepers I have graciously allowed to go up the oaks until I pull them down before they bloom. You will, perhaps, spot a grape vine, but I assure you I murderized it, too. Unfortunately, it is trying to reproduce, so I will have to take RoundUp to it once there are leaves. I have been trying to get rid of that vine for ten years now. Persistent.

Also invisible in the photo, but definitely present, are tree worms (don't know what they really are called). These are the inchworm-like insects that hatch from oak galls, then hang on a delicate thread, as they wend their way to the ground (where I hope the 8 zillion blue jays will eat them). These always appear right around the time of my friend Austin's birthday bash, making sitting under the trees at the church and jamming less than pleasant. You always have to be checking for worms. If you sit very quietly at this time of year you can actually hear them landing. Ick. Sounds like rain. Yuck.


On a happier note, I am also sharing a picture of the Younger Boy, to prove he is also cute. Here he is wearing the hat his dad got him on Ebay from the Ukraine (wow, that person had great handwriting, judging from how well the package was addressed). Not sure what the fascination with Russia is, but he also got "learn Russian" DVDs. He's practicing--maybe eventually he can talk to Stephanie W.

But look how manly he has become at almost 14. And look at that skin! What a complexion! This picture was taken last week, before the oaks had budded out and after they lost all their leaves (yes, live oaks shed, in the spring).

I hope this will post, since an Internet glitch killed my first draft of this, and something Jeff was writing, too.