Holler Oddities~

Feb28

Ghost ranches, buried old cars, coyote packs, a former free range Ankole Watusi bull, The Holler is definitely an odd place, which is why we fit in so well!

Take this thorny tree for example. It is a Silk Floss tree and is about 50 feet tall.

This time of year it is covered in plate sized cotton poofs.

The poofs develop from large seed pods.

In the fall, the tree drops its leaves and devotes all its energy to producing masses of beautiful blooms.

The Holler abuts a large nature preserve and is built on very old orchards. Back in the day, orchard workers lived on site and indulged in their love of exotic plants and trees, many of which are still thriving and producing today.

I often wish I could tell them how much we appreciate living with the beautiful results of their talent and effort.

Cheers to you from the very odd Holler~

237 thoughts on “Holler Oddities~”

    • Yes. We have all sorts of producing plants that are very old, from the actual orchards (avocados, lemons, grapefruits and pomegranates) to the exotics, all sorts of nuts, passion fruit and flowers, palms, camellias, wild roses, coral trees, grapes that are wild now, all kinds of exotic cacti, even old watermelons that reseed and sow. I should make a list. I don’t know all that grows here. We have beautiful white flowering trees and I don’t know what they are. It took me almost a decade to identify the soap plants and flowers that grow all over here in the spring. You can make soap from the plant დ

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  3. Wow, cool tree! I see that it is related to kapok, a wonderful natural and durable stuffing for pillows (they used kapok for life preservers before synthetics were developed). Of course, with all those thorns and being so high up, harvesting would be problematic!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  8. Those are beautiful! We have similar, not as fancy trees that do that — cottonwood trees. I seldom see the trees doing the cotton, but for weeks in the spring, the cotton snows through the air. Thank you for sharing your odd holler!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • You are most welcome. I had no idea what they were either. They are still plants and trees I can’t identify at The Holler. It took me about a decade to find out what soap plants were. They cover The Holler in the spring დ

      Like

      Reply

    • I don’t think any part of the tree is edible, although the bark floats and was used for canoes and paper. The cotton was used for insulation. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the spines were used too… დ

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  20. I love coming across plants I had no prior knowledge of – most of my questions have been answered in the comments, so I am left saying think you for another adventure from your Holler.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  24. Pingback: Holler Oddities~ | In the Net! – Pictures and Stories of Life

  28. Our hollows in West Virginia were settled by small homesteading farms. Many had fruit trees near the homes. Most of the old homes became abandoned, deteriorated and decayed back to earth. But, if you drive around in the Spring, you can find old apple trees here and there suggesting where past generations lived.

    Like

    Reply

  37. Probably all of us – wherever we live – pass by something odd. The oddity is the natural. Or perhaps we never even look.
    Your posts always make us be more observant of what is around us.
    Will be looking for odd things. (bypassing the mirror)

    Like

    Reply

    • Smiling…. Yes I avoid the oddities presented to me by the mirror as well!!! I am so happy you are being more observant. It definitely makes life more enjoyable and interesting. Thank you and take good care my friend დ

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • I know they use the cotton to make stuffing in pillows and things, for insulation in clothes, and for life preservers since the fibers are water resistant and float. They use the bard to make canoes and paper. დ

      Like

      Reply

  44. I love your images and post! I had no idea about these trees. Nature is such a miracle, isn’t it? The fact that these β€œpuffs” float, are water resistant, etc., reinforces the truth that nature really can take of life needs, if we will only care for nature with reverence… and harmonize our needs 😊. Hmmm, probably the original plan once upon a time….lol!

    Like

    Reply

  49. Thanks for the freaky fun Cindy! I love the puff balls, exotic plants, and trees. How wonderful that you can enjoy the fruits of their love from long ago. I want to see photos of the cars, ghosts, and bull! πŸ™‚

    Like

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

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

Google photo

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

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter 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.