A little tip (and laugh) for today:

When we bought our house we noticed that the front yard was beautiful and well-balanced with colors. A large spruce graces the front corner, an ornamental plum with year-round red leaves sat in the middle (it’s gone now, died a while back), and a dogwood sits near the house with its graceful flowers every spring. 

Next to our driveway, is a beautiful tall female ginkgo tree. Evidently they have gender, these trees. It really is beautiful with fan-shaped leaves that turn bright yellow in the fall. There’s literally no other tree like these, and I appreciate uniqueness, so I thought it was pretty neat. 

Unfortunately, the female version of this tree also drops its fruit in the fall. This fruit has a smell distinctly resembling dog poo when broken or stepped on. 

It must be a very healthy tree because we have a bumper crop of fruit this year. Immediately upon pulling up to our house and opening our car doors, our olfactory senses are accosted by the stench of our entire front yard filled with these stink bombs. I’m sure the neighbors love it too. 

Walking our driveway or front sidewalk is like an adult version of hopscotch with dire and smelly consequences for a misstep. As we all walk to get in the car you can hear the distinct sound of popping as people fail to avoid the stink bombs. We get in the car and inevitably somebody has some on their shoe. It makes for an interesting ride to wherever we are going. 

I just cleared them all off with a snow shovel, but before I even got done some more had fallen. There are probably as many left in the tree as have already fallen. This gives us something to look forward to, I guess. 

So here’s my advice: if you want a beautiful ginkgo tree, make sure you get a male one. Or plant a female one NOT near your driveway or anywhere people walk. Or plan to hold your nose upon exiting your house during all of November.

I suppose there must be a deep moral lesson to be gained from this story, but right now I can’t think what it would be. I’m too busy snow-shoveling, (mine-sweeping?) my driveway.

Maybe the lesson is that sometimes life gives you stinky stuff, so you might as well get a laugh along with it.