Date Palms

I’ve got two date palm trees growing on the side of my driveway that are driving me nuts (pun intended!) I can’t quite understand the connection between date plants and palm trees … how they EVER got cross pollinated in the first place! As a result of their union on my property, we all end up stepping on their dried up date droppings, bring them inside the house and grind them into my carpeting. Not on purpose, of course, but I then again, I can’t speak for the kids…

My vacuum cleaner barely has the suction to pick up lint. With a little coaxing from me, I can usually get the lint to adhere to the roller and move on through to the bag inside. Now with the date droppings … that’s whole ‘nother story! All my vacuum does is suck them up to the roller and conveniently shoot them to the opposite side of the room I’m vacuuming. It’s ve-e-r-r-ry fRuStRaTiNg to say the least and there is NO trick NOT tried to force those little boogers up my vacuum!

Date palms and palm trees in general invite many creatures to make their home in the palm. I don’t mind the mice so much. So far they haven’t entered my home. I’ve only seen one lizard and we caught it real quick. Did you know their tails break off real easy when you grab them while they are in their getaway mode?

Now it’s the pigeons that are really getting to me too. Not only do they share my dog’s food, they perch themselves on my roof when they want fresh air and sunshine. Who knows what I would find up there if I bothered to look. I’m sure their curved little claws will eventually wear out the roof. What irritates me the most is that they drop their gray and white poopie on my car when I’m home. I used to turn on my windshield wipers every morning so I could see to drive to work. I know better now! After just a few times, I soon learned that smeared pigeon poopie isn’t very transparent. 

I have been trying my best to set a good example to my neighbors. I try to take pride in my home ownership. Every weekend I’m outside with my steel brush, scraping the pigeon poopie off the driveway.

I even hose my driveway off every day to rid the concrete of all of the unsightly date debris. Once I get the stuff out to the street, I hose it clear down to the end of the cul-de-sac where the storm drain resides. (You don’t think I’d think of sweeping a multitude of date droppings up and trashing them in bags, do you? Sure I do … but who’s got the time?) Thank goodness for my power spray nozzle!

Sheesh, in what I pay in water bills, it’d be real nice if I could get the city to sweep the street as often as I hose down my driveway! With all of the cost cutting they do nowadays, I’m lucky to have street sweeps done once per quarter.

I seem to spend more time keeping up appearances on the outside of my home than I do on the inside. No wonder I can never seem to keep up with my house.