Must be new goggle season, er, I mean pool season. Pool opened officially over Memorial Day weekend.
Can you tell John is out of grad school for the summer? Back to blogging again. Almost like being on an island by myself again in Sweden. Alas, just a few short weeks and it will be back to the grind again.
With our house came a couple Catalpa trees. I'd seen them before but never considered them. Mon had never seen them at all.
They have a large spade shaped leaf and in the spring, they have orchid like flowers for a couple weeks. Our Catalpas happen to be near our deck and provide great shade in the afternoons.
That was all the upsides of the trees. Catalpas also produce a foot long (30+ cm) woody seed pod in the fall. Then they fall, and fall, and fall until spring. Everyone of our gutters was packed with Catalpa pods when we bought our house. The gutters are in serious need of upgrading, especially for gutter covers. But the Catalpa pods fall not only in our yard but in our neighbor's as well. One neighbor has told us this on numerous occasions.
Yesterday, when sitting out on the deck miniature worms kept dropping on me. A cursory search shows that certain catepillars eat Catalpa leaves, and those catepillars are great for fishing bait. You can give a man a fish... Looks like we may have some negotiating to do with these trees.
Must be new goggle season, er, I mean pool season. Pool opened officially over Memorial Day weekend.
Can you tell John is out of grad school for the summer? Back to blogging again. Almost like being on an island by myself again in Sweden. Alas, just a few short weeks and it will be back to the grind again.
With our house came a couple Catalpa trees. I'd seen them before but never considered them. Mon had never seen them at all. 
They have a large spade shaped leaf and in the spring, they have orchid like flowers for a couple weeks. Our Catalpas happen to be near our deck and provide great shade in the afternoons.
That was all the upsides of the trees. Catalpas also produce a foot long (30+ cm) woody seed pod in the fall. Then they fall, and fall, and fall until spring. Everyone of our gutters was packed with Catalpa pods when we bought our house. The gutters are in serious need of upgrading, especially for gutter covers. But the Catalpa pods fall not only in our yard but in our neighbor's as well. One neighbor has told us this on numerous occasions. 
Yesterday, when sitting out on the deck miniature worms kept dropping on me. A cursory search shows that certain catepillars eat Catalpa leaves, and those catepillars are great for fishing bait. You can give a man a fish... Looks like we may have some negotiating to do with these trees.
1 comment:
I love Catalpas. They are not very popular trees for some reason and perhaps its just because they drop a lot of litter in the fall. I consider that a decent trade off for the shade and the smell of their flowers at the beginning of June. You can't just go out and buy a Catalpa tree.
One of the things I love - To me, the smell of Catalpa flowers blooming at the beginning of June is the definition of the start of summer. You know how fragrance memories imprint on your mind more than just about anything? As a kid getting out of school and sitting on the porch just breathing in the fragrance of summer. It was only recently, I figured out it was the Catalpa I was smelling. The smell of Catalpa flowers=summer.
When we were kids, we used to string the flowers and make lai's / flower necklaces.
I might like to get one of two of those seed pods from you.
Margaret
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