PODS!

I love nature. I love trees. But even I am having a hard time loving our locust trees right now. Funny thing is, we had locust trees (the 100-year old variety) at our old house. The only thing better about these much younger locust trees is that they don't drop deadly 6-inch thorns that pierce your shoes.

But they're trouble enough. In dry years, the girl trees (we have two in our yard) produce an extreme number of pods. Apparently the girls go into stress and feel the need to reproduce, so as to create even MORE locust trees.

The pods are heavy to rake. But they're somehow light enough to blow everywhere. On windy days, you hear them hitting the house with a "clunk". And worse, they blow into our neighbors' yards.

Our yard looks like this. If you're unlucky enough to live next door to us, your yard looks like this, too. So my first task in Pod Clean-Up is to rake everyone else's yard, such is the extent of my POD GUILT.

Spouse prefers to wait until every last pod is down from the trees before dealing with them. Maybe he's hoping that they'll blow right on out of our yard.

It's probably not a good sign when it's easier to shovel than rake your yard.

Can I get some sympathy? Or at least some ideas for a pod craft project?