Friday, September 3, 2010

Birch Seeds

Here are my birch trees. Beautiful, aren't they?

This is the first thing I see when I look out my kitchen window, or walk out my kitchen door.

Years ago, we started out with three, but now, thanks to Mother Nature, we have five. And we've transplanted another 5. We've also dug up, pulled up, sprayed, burned and stomped on a multitude of others besides these. Don't get me wrong, I love my birch trees. But the reason we have more now, is simply this:

This pile is made up of a quadzillion birch tree seeds. Yes, I counted them. I had nothing else to do, so I counted them, and came up with a quadzillion seeds. I'm quite good at math, so you can trust me on that number. Anyway, it's that time of year when my birch trees start dropping their seeds. The pile of a quadzillion seeds that I swept up today is what has fallen in three days, right outside my kitchen door. That wouldn't be so bad, except we track them into the house. They tend to stick onto the bottom of shoes. So every few days, we track about a trillion of these things into the house.


Even the cat brings them in. I haven't yet figured out how to keep the seeds out. Until I do, I will keep sweeping every few days. Mother Nature is working overtime. Anybody want some birch seeds?

5 comments:

  1. Oh, I wish! The birch is my favorite tree, but our area is plagued with birch borers. I've lost two birch trees to them, and you can drive around our town and only see dead birch trees now.

    I have that same mess with my pine trees. It's either blossoms or needles or pine cones. They have to be the dirtiest trees!

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  2. You know that if you save some we will take them from you in Nov! We would love to get them to sprout and grow!

    Oh yes and thank you, Mitch says, for the smelly stuff! :-) I love them!

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  3. Beautiful birch trees, but I don't think all that seeds are so beautiful - especially when you'll have to sweep every day...

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  4. Granny, Oh, birch borers! They would be terrible!!! Luckily, we don't have those. If you have a wood stove, you could use your pine cones for starting fires. We usually collect some when we go camping. I really like them.

    Becca, Yeah, I'll save a big garbage bag of seeds for you. I should have them by, oh, say, a few weeks from now! Your welcome, glad you like them.

    Astrid, they are very beautiful. I usually have to sweep every few days this time of year for about a month or so. Good thing I'm not a neat-nick!

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  5. You know , I've always loved Birch trees, but, I didn't realize they dropped so many seeds. If I do get one I'll be sure not to plant it to close to a walking path! Thanks for the info!

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