Pods & things

So... all the things I was planning to do this weekend.. I did.

And what do I post? Pictures of the Womens' Expo in Edison? No. A cute shot of my niece (who accompanied us to the Expo)? No. Pictures of the Sizzlers gathered here? No. Not even a one of those heart melting pix of our shedding Shelty, Rudy. Instead today, I give you ... Pods.

The lush, beautiful flowers of the spring Wisteria become these strange velvety pods that hang from the "pergola" that leads to our back door.

I believe that last year, probably 6 years after planting this amazing vine, we had our first truly amazing bloom. It took some time to see my first pod. They weren't very obvious and in fact when I first saw them, I thought some very odd, very large butterflies were creating some frighteningly odd crysalises. At least that was my first thought.

It soon dawned on me that these alien-looking things were actually the seed pods of the wisteria. There weren't THAT many of them and they were kinda interesting, but mostly high above the foilage and so out of sight until the leaves fell from the vines in the fall.

Sometime, during the winter, the pods "sprung", creating some quite interesting, springy looking twirls, and a shower of the shiny, flat seeds. I started picking them up in the early spring thinking I would make them into an unusual piece of jewelry.

Well, I haven't done anything with them yet, but, as you can see from the picture, this year, the pergola is full of the bizarre things and we'll have an amazing crop of the shiny seeds - not to mention the swirly sprung pods.

I will just have to do something soon with the seeds I saved from last year. Stay tuned!