The last few days were filled with lots of sunshine and warm breezes, here in London, Ontario, Canada. I was able to get quite a bit of gardening done. It was getting near dusk, the other day, and I had just finished mowing our lawn using an old style mower with the revolving cutting blade (no fossil fuels being consumed here!). I took a moment to admire my evenly cut lawn full of many shades of green. As I was heading inside for the night a warm wind started to blow. I looked up and saw a few Maple keys spinning around, like little helicopters, as they descended to the ground. This always makes me smile cuz they look like something from a G.I. Joe cartoon. The next afternoon I was not laughing anymore…
I got home from work and took Koly out to the backyard and then my eyes widened as I realized that my lawn had indeed been attacked in what looked like an all out war assault. Maybe G.I. Joe was hiding in the bushes!
Oh! My lawn! My beautiful clean and green lawn! Where for art thou???
Now, living in Canada and having several Maple trees in the yard where I grew up, I was used to the annual spring clean up of Maple keys… but I had never seen anything like this! It must have been one heck of a wind the night before.
Nowhere could I find a patch of lawn that hadn’t been covered in Maple keys. They were everywhere. Okay – my shock had passed and I was smiling again. Quite hilarious!
The punchline to this joke came just as I was finishing this little photoshoot. I was on my knees, just about to push the button on my camera when – KAPLOP! – this conglomerate landed right on my head!!! It wasn’t an individual Maple key, it was an entire neighbourhood of Maple keys! I looked up at the tree and said, “Hey! Are you laughing at me!!!”
I’m sure that a majority of my readers are very familiar with this natural phenomena and will get a small chuckle from this short story. But, I wrote this for my readers from Mexico, South Africa, Canada’s arctic and Australia, realizing that many of you may not be familiar with this spring ritual of the Maple tree. This is one of the reasons why I like to share stories about the place where I live. In this day of growing global consciousness it’s important for each of us to become aware of all the interesting things that happen in all the many places around our world.
Jim
I got home from work and took Koly out to the backyard and then my eyes widened as I realized that my lawn had indeed been attacked in what looked like an all out war assault. Maybe G.I. Joe was hiding in the bushes!
Oh! My lawn! My beautiful clean and green lawn! Where for art thou???
Now, living in Canada and having several Maple trees in the yard where I grew up, I was used to the annual spring clean up of Maple keys… but I had never seen anything like this! It must have been one heck of a wind the night before.
Nowhere could I find a patch of lawn that hadn’t been covered in Maple keys. They were everywhere. Okay – my shock had passed and I was smiling again. Quite hilarious!
The punchline to this joke came just as I was finishing this little photoshoot. I was on my knees, just about to push the button on my camera when – KAPLOP! – this conglomerate landed right on my head!!! It wasn’t an individual Maple key, it was an entire neighbourhood of Maple keys! I looked up at the tree and said, “Hey! Are you laughing at me!!!”
I’m sure that a majority of my readers are very familiar with this natural phenomena and will get a small chuckle from this short story. But, I wrote this for my readers from Mexico, South Africa, Canada’s arctic and Australia, realizing that many of you may not be familiar with this spring ritual of the Maple tree. This is one of the reasons why I like to share stories about the place where I live. In this day of growing global consciousness it’s important for each of us to become aware of all the interesting things that happen in all the many places around our world.
Jim
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1 comment:
Thanks for sharing the pics! ^_^ Where I live it's all about the Oak trees. I'm not sure what their pollen-droppers are called, but they look like stringy mops. When they fall they cover *everything!*
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