Do you live in Central Texas? Then by all means please take a look at any live oak tree close to you. If you live here, there will doubtless be many to choose from. Go ahead, I'll wait.
You see? Watch for longer than 30 seconds and I guarantee you're seeing leaves dropping to the ground like sand in an hourglass.
It is "that time" again. Live Oak Leaf Fall comes first. Then the airspace under each tree will be filled with inchworms dropping on their silk lifelines and then BAM! Central Texas will be coated with pollen just as surely as if Emeril himself had been seasoning our world.
I am preparing as best I can, stocking up on tissues and reserving loads of books from the library because starting, oh, about RIGHT NOW and lasting as long as it takes for the leaves to come back and the pollen dangles to go away, I am on indoors quarantine.
Not that I can't leave the house, but every time I do try to be outside for any length of time I begin to sneeze, feel flushed, nose drips like a faucet, heart speeds up and my body adrenalizes like I just ran a race. I know it SOUNDS like fun.....
And yes, I do the whole allergy medicine dance. Faithfully. But I grew up here, I developed my allergies here, and solong as I stubbornly choose to live here I will simply have to take my seasonal knocks.
I'm just saying (OK - it sounds like I am whining and maybe I am - just a little) that my garden will have to fend mostly for itself for a while. I'll be out, briefly, in the late afternoons when the pollen counts are down, or those days it mists rain and I can work for a bit in rain washed air, but mostly I'll be in.
And Daffodils!
thermometer and the oak trees and the bluebonnets (and my nose) never lie. It is by golly SPRING!
Happy happy Spring, y'all! Be sure to fully enjoy the mildness before the death star heats back up and the Season of Complaining and Ducking Into Shade is upon us.
This is what we pay for, annually, this is our trade off, the sunny days filled with wildflowers. Enjoy, be merry, if you do venture out and about, please don't trample the bluebonnets.
I'd whine.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry, and I know what you are going through from our son's lifelong experiences. He seems to have found something to limit it, but I'm sure you don't want to hear of any more remedies that won't work for you.
You are lucky that your town council doesn't insist on spraying those trees against the inchworm invasion. The Lindane, Dieldrin and whatnot they used while we had one of those episodes caused me tremendous grief.
Happy reading. (making lemonade)
Thanks for dropping in Jo. You are always welcome here.
ReplyDeleteOoof - Lindane and Dieldrin are bad players. Not surprising you reacted to a widespread spraying. Our itty bitty town doesn't spray for anything and the worms disappear along with the pollen. Eventually....
I take medicine that keeps me a bit on the sleepy, but happily also on the nonsneezing side as long as I remember my limitations and don't push my luck too often. Others have it worse so I consider it a not so gentle reminder not to overdo. Onward!
Yea, I'm sniffling as I write this. What in the world is that beautiful first plant? Is it a hyacinth? Gorgeous. So are the narcissus & first bluebonnet, but that white one is a killer!
ReplyDeleteNot fair.
ReplyDeleteWe get cedar reactions in December/January so I have an inkling how uncomfortable you are. I neti twice a day then trying to keep clear.
Hope it passes quickly.
Sorry your allergies keep you from enjoying the arrival of spring- or is it summer. Sure felt like that yesterday. I noticed the leaves starting to fall and I have barely finished cleaning up winter. As to those oak leaf rollers- we have had years when you could hear the poop landing on the ground. We did do some spraying with BT one year and things have been better since then- or maybe it was just nature's cycle- like the sudden disappearance of the cotton rats. Is that the Italian hyacinth in the first photo? Enjoy the spring as best you can.
ReplyDeleteLinda and Jen - the hyacinth is from the GGW collection of white bulbs - these are Hyacinthus "White Festival", a multiflowering variety that is obviously not too picky, at least to begin with, as the soil out back has been relatively undisturbed once I got the wildflower beds going.
ReplyDeleteThe Narcissus are Ice King (a double flowering variety) and Pueblo with the light yellow center. Ice King just starting blooming yesterday and it is GORGEOUS... Can't wait for the tulips!
Love the Hyacinths, Texas Deb, and am in full sympathy with you on the oak pollen...our cars will be yellow and it gets sucked in when the engines start... ick!!
ReplyDeleteHappy GBBD - my bluebonnets are just starting to hint at blossoms.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Just amazing flowers are there.
ReplyDeletebpo projects
Thanks, Annie - I'd never had hyacinths blooming outside before - typically always bought some at the grocer's and those always died once I transplanted them outside. This is quite novel!
ReplyDeleteAMIT - thank you as well - I appreciate you dropping in!