A Random Discovery

~ King Ben's Grandma

Another blogger used a picture of seed pods on a tree in their post today and it got me thinking. Hmmmm… I love those moments when something nudges me with a question, a mystery that needs solving. To the Mystery Machine…or the internet if you’re lazy and in your PJs like me.

Let’s back up, waaay up to when we first moved into this rental house. It was about ten years ago. There was a little covered deck in the back yard. It’s about six feet by eight feet. It’s against a property dividing concrete block wall and overlooks the back yard. When we moved in we noticed a hole in the deck and a stump in the hole. It was a bougainvillea. We knew that because we’d seen it when we would go to the corner market from our family home which is a block away. (Tangent Note: The family home where my daughters grew up, the apartment we lived in for a year after being evicted from the family home after the ex left, and the house we live in now are all within sight of each other)

Since I’m not a fan of bougainvillea, I was happy it was gone. We put a table and an old couch and some chairs on the deck and had many, many good times. Ben was a toddler and had a huge yard to play in, younger daughter was in high school and her friends would come over to hang out. We nicknamed the deck “Foreman’s Basement” (from That 70s Show).

Fast forward a couple years. We notice a plant is growing on the other side of the lattice-topped fence that forms one side of the deck area. There’s also a part that’s growing inside. I was groaning thinking the bougainvillea must have come back, sending a shoot under the deck. The new sprout was only about a foot away from the old stump, diagonally. We left it alone.

Years pass and the mystery plant grows and grows. It has become a split trunk mystery tree. We trim it back some winters, leave it alone mostly.

So now we’re in the present. We rarely use the deck anymore. Ben doesnt need the supervision when he plays in the backyard that he needed when he was younger. The tree is mostly ignored except the occasional “We really need to trim that back” thought.

A few days ago the flock of wild parrots that migrate around our county made their way back into my neighborhood. I got excited because I love the parrots. I’ve written about them before. A few of them even visited the mystery tree this time.

That sparked a little interest. Why were they visiting my tree when they never had before? I saw that they were eating something and filed the thought away.

A few days ago I found a seed pod on the ground. It had obviously been gnawed on by the parrots when they visited.  I’d never noticed seed pods on the tree before, so I looked. Sure enough, there were lots, all over the tree. I did a quick search and came up with nothing. It was a very quick, very lazy search.

Then today I saw the picture in the other blogger’s post and since they didnt identify the tree, I looked it up. Then I started thinking about my tree and did a more thorough search.

Drum roll please… I have a pecan tree in my back yard!

pt_1570151500391

I have no idea how it is even possible, but every source seems to point to pecan. I guess this is the first year it has produced, I would have noticed dropped nuts before. I’m very excited to see what kind of harvest we’ll have.

This tree grew completely wild. We didn’t water or fertilize it, nothing. I probably wouldn’t have noticed it was a nut tree until I saw the nuts on the ground if it weren’t for the parrots. I hope the few that visited don’t tell the rest of the flock. I dont mind sharing, but I’d like to have some too.

Such a random, but exceedingly cool discovery.

31 thoughts on “A Random Discovery”

    1. The parrots have already moved on🙁 It was rainy the few days they were here. I dont know if that had anything to do with their sudden appearance. They migrate around to where the food is. They’ll probably be back just in time for harvest😕😀

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

        1. I would probably lose my SSDI benefits. I already canceled my big whopping $15.00/month food aid because they wanted me to do a 2 hour interview and provide all kinds of paperwork. So NOT worth $15/month. I’ll just eat pecans😂

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

        1. We were thinking maybe a bird dropped one at some point when nothing was growing in that area. The tree sprouted on either side of a fence that forms one side of the little deck area. It might have been one of the ravens or possibly a seagull. The parrots come to the neighborhood but are usually several houses away.
          We get little palm tree sprouts all the time. Tons of palm trees everywhere and the “Santa Ana” winds we get in fall/winter are strong. Pecan trees just aren’t popular ornamental trees in SoCal as far as I know. We’ve got a lot of Italian Cypress, bunch of different palm, eucalyptus everywhere, pepper trees, jacaranda for pretty (and messy), magnolias some citrus, plum, peach, olive

          I guess it’s just a gift of nuts to a nutty grandma lady🤪

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

  8. Pecans, yum. We have wild parrots that visit too. They are noisy little buggers. They make me think of that Hitchcock movie when they come around. I found a few green feathers on the ground recently. I wonder if I could grow macadamia nuts. Probably need to be in Hawaii for that.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. It’s not much of a paradise 😂 We have ravens more often than parrots. They were only here a couple days… same time a storm was rolling through. ☹
      I’m still so shocked about the tree being a pecan tree. I have zero idea how or when it sprouted. It was just a plant growing. So random! I really hope we get a good harvest and the nuts are even edible. We’ve never done anything with the poor tree.🌳🦜💌

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.