Have you had fun guessing the seeds? This is the last one. I’ll be drawing for the winners this weekend. Two winners or who knows? Maybe three. And remember you don’t have to have the right guess to enter. Just say you don’t know the way Gail and Annette did on Sunday’s post. But some of you did guess my Sunday picture or at least came very close. The picture is of a Chinese chestnut from a tree in our yard.
Somebody gave my husband the seed years ago and he decided to see if it would grow. It did. But I have to tell you it is NOT my favorite tree. It was okay for several years, but then it bloomed. Not good. Very not good! At the time we didn’t have air conditioning and depended on an attic fan to cool out the house at night. Chinese chestnut blooms smell very bad, or at least ours does. That first year I thought some poor animal had crawled up under our bedroom window and died — days ago!! I had to hold my breath walking through the yard. I went from the wonderful fragrance of lilacs to these. Not a good progression.
For some reason, this year the blooms didn’t smell as awful. Of course the last few years we’ve had the air conditioning and haven’t had to have our windows open to the stinking fragrance. And it may have not bloomed as heavily as it did those earlier years.
But that’s not the only problem with this tree. The outer shells of the chestnut is neat, don’t you think? Well, it is also very, very sticky, and it is almost impossible to pick one of them up without getting small needles in your fingers. When I first discovered this, my grandson was about two and running around barefoot in the yard. He got a foot full of these stickers. Impossible to see, but painful. So I picked up every one of the chestnuts and even the bits of the shells I could find and removed it from the yard.
Still, every tree has its own special charms. I’m sure someday I’ll figure out a charm for this one. In fact, I went online to look the tree up and in the pictures I found the trees did look charming. Maybe I need to give ours some fertilizer or something.
I do have to note a couple of the great guesses. Loretta guessed hollyhocks and took me back to my childhood when I loved playing with hollyhock seeds. Not that they looked much like chestnuts, but it was still a fun memory. Ann guessed a burr thingy. That could cover a lot of burr seeds. 🙂 And Amy had the fun guess of a caterpillar. If you squint your eyes and use your imagination, you can see that caterpillar and then you can think about how in some weird way the caterpillar might be considered a butterfly seed. LOL.
Thank you all for guessing and making this mystery seed contest fun. This post’s seeds might be easier for you. So what do you think? Do you know what the picture of seeds is this time? I can’t wait to read your guesses.
But while I’m waiting for you to read this, I’m going to go out on the deck and look at the ocean a while here in Monterey Bay where I’ve been at a writers’ retreat. I need to hurry because the sun is going down and the day is fleeing. Tomorrow, I have to get on the airplane and fly home. Looking forward to being home again too and seeing my husband and taking Oscar for a walk.
As always, thanks for reading.