You may have seen me wandering about our yard with a grab stick patiently, endlessly, picking up pine cones. You would not be the first to wonder why an otherwise normal appearing man would spend time trying to undo one of nature’s efforts to make more pine trees. Nobody has come right out and called me loony yet but I get a lot of curious looks from people driving by.
Dry cones are a good way to start a wood fire in the stove of course. And getting outdoors beats sitting at a computer or watching TV any day. There is yet another reason and that is when you step on a pine cone your ankle wants to go sideways which is not a good thing.
But the title of this post is that there is a dark and sinister REASON THEY KEEP FALLING AND FILLING UP MY YARD ! This took a great deal of thought and I’m pretty sure the logic holds. What happens you see is that the tree feels the cone hitting the ground. It actually senses the 4 or 5 ounces of weight resting there nearby and takes some measure of comfort from that sensation.
You’ve read that plants might have feelings, right? So maybe it’s true and when some yo-yo comes around and starts collecting these pine cones the tree thinks to itself, why I better get busy and replace them!
This, gentle reader, is why your yard and mine will never lack a rich carpet of pine cones to twist your ankles when we wander amongst them.