The new face of evil

Here you have it. Much like a mug shot of a hardened criminal, this maple seed appears remorseless. What crime has the seemingly innocent whirlybird committed? I will tell you.

As I might have mentioned, Jean and I recently had a professional landscaping company redo our yard. We decided to go with all dark mulch, a change from the golden cyprus we used to get in the front. When they were done, we were very pleased with our beautiful new yard and flower beds...for about one day.

A strong wind blew through central Ohio. Next door, my neighbor's maple tree did what any smart self propogating tree would do - it released oh, say, 20,000 maple seeds. Now, normally the wind in our area blows away from the tree. But not this time. All the seeds drifted gleefully into our yard.

All dark mulch. 20,000 off-white maple seeds. Now our flowerbeds across the entire house (even the opposite side of the house) look like a teenager with acne. Now, how do you remedy this situation? Well, you certainly don't leave them there, not after spending a bunch of money to make everything look nice. No, you get down on your hands and knees, for hours, and pick them out of the mulch.

Pick pick (insert choice words) pick pick. Something like that...