Catkin Clouds

I like Charleston. I really do. But I’m finding I don’t like the catkins around here.

Heck, I didn’t even know what catkins were until recently. Pictured at left, they’re the male part of the pollenation process of oak trees (apparently),  though I know them only as the clouds of seedy pods littering my yard and staining anything they get onto. 

I raked today — must still admit to being peeved about raking leaves in the spring — and I picked up bags of these catkins.  At one point, they were so piled up that I was shoveling them with a snowshovel into trash bags. Gallons and gallons of them.  And of course they puffed away a dusty choking fog of pollen as I did so. Dreadful.

I swear they’re worse this year, too. I remember them last year, but it was nothing like this. And the worst part? As I was raking there were still more falling when the wind blew.

I like our live oaks. No, more than that I love them. But this catkin crap? Not cool, Mother Nature. Not cool at all.