Not every bloom is a beauty...

We have distinct spring flowerinerig periods here at the lake.   The first, which is so very anticipated each year and abundantly celebrated, is daffodil time.  Due to years of naturalizing this property with bulbs, bulbs and more bulbs, we get a very showy blooming of daffodils in a variety of colors each spring.  They make me happy and they make visitors happy and they make passers-by happy.  We all love seeing the daffodils. 

We cheer the dogwood and redbud and fruit trees coming in to bloom.  It's spring! It's spring! The trees are blooming and it's spring!

The next bloom is the vibrant and colorful azalea and rhododendron.   We have many beautiful plantings and groupings of these ladies around the property and I plant more every year.   Hot pink, purple, red…these are some shade loving soldiers at this lake house and they, too, make me happy.   

The final bloom, not so welcome and not thought of so highly is the darned oak tail.   I am sure there is a scientific name but anyone who has an oak tree, and we have many, know these buggers by oak tail.  Hanging heavy in the trees in early spring until they drop.  They are pollen laden, they are messy, they stain wood, they clog gutters, they destroy a freshly washed windshield…they are awful. 

I understand  oak tails are necessary for the growth cycle of the mighty oak tree.  But, really?  I waited and waited to wash my car, slightly embarrassed to see it parked at the grocery store.  My grey car dusted with yellow.  I yanked small piles out of the nooks and crannies along my windshield, around the trunk, the gas tank door.   

I swept the deck, and swept the deck…and swept the deck.  Piles of the little fuzzy oak tail, the powdery pollen making me sneeze, rub my nose and sneeze some more.  For days I brushed them from the siding, loosened them from around the windows of the house, pulled them off the azaleas and hosta, swept them from chairs.  Unless it rained.  Then they are little slimy, stick to everything, including the broom, pains in the rumpus.  Definitely a bloom I could do without.