Pollen Attack.

Moving to a place different from where you grew up lends itself to being a continual learning experience. You will always be finding out new things, questioning what you see or hear, and absorbing your surroundings. This is good. Learning will prevent you from being an idiot in the future.

Our first spring in SC I remember going out to my car one morning when it had rained a bit the night before. As I stepped from our porch, I saw a big pile of yellow paint (so I thought). My first reaction: some delinquent kids had used our house as a paintball target. Humph.

Since I knew paintball paint could be washed away easily I didn't get too upset. Then as I moved to my car I thought how awfully weird it was that they really only hit the bottom of our steps and the concrete. And then it got me thinking that maybe it really wasn't paintball paint. But what in the world could accumulate into a pee yellow sludge on the bottom of my steps?

I was in a hurry (not a morning person) so I just left and didn't think too much about it. And thankfully I wasn't convinced about the paintball thing enough to mention it to anybody at work. It wasn't until much later that I learned the real identity of this weird substance: pollen.

Basically all the pine trees and every other beautiful budding thing causes pollen to coat the whole south for a few weeks every spring. Once things are in full bloom, the pollen lessens and there is no more yellow muck on everything.

So our first spring here, I apparently didn't see that everything was coated in a nice yellow mist. It wasn't until the rain had come and washed it together that I even noticed it. Now our fourth spring here I wonder how I didn't see it... or maybe 2008 was a "good" pollen year.

To give you non-southerners a picture of what I'm talking about, here's our bottom step. Click the photo to open bigger to get a better idea. The yellow stuff is the pollen. This is just a few days worth. Sidenote: I haven't killed our azalea bush yet! You can see one white bloom! Victory!


If you look closely, you can see the pollen film over the porch. It literally covers everything. It's pretty nasty.


And I was going to title this "pullen" because that's how I think southerners say "pollen." I really miss me some good North Dakotan o's sometimes.

Oh and if you are wondering if there are any negative effects of the pollen attack, the answer is YES. Just ask my nose when I'm trying to sleep at night!

-Heather