How to waste a whole day...

It's called Googling. You know, how you quick look something up, then you see an interesting link and have to look at THAT, then...

'Twas raining again. But I still had birds at the birdbath, so I sat on the porch with my binoculars and bird books (the birds here are somewhat alien to Minnesota, have to look'em up). Couldn't find this one, so I googled him:

 

Pronounced FAY-NO-PEP-LA. They're unique because they eat mostly mistletoe berries AND breed twice, here in the winter and later in Utah.  Plus the mistletoe berries are two different kinds here and in Utah. Thought that was interesting, you may not.

Anyway, then I had to google the mistletoe. Turns out it likes Cats-claw Acacia trees here. So I had to google THAT. Then I went out in the rain and looked for them. I have lots, right here on our own lot.

 

These are also called "Wait-A-Minutes" because you walk by it, get your clothes snagged on a "claw" and have to say to your companion "Hold on, wait a minute..." Don't they look exactly like cat claws?

And sure as s**t, my Acacias were loaded with mistletoe. The berries are tiny yet, but those crested black birds were eating them anyway.

So next to the Acacia was a tree with blue berries, so I had to google that to see who eats those. Turns out it's an Elephant Tree (the trunks look like elephant legs), of which there are many varieties, endangered in the US but plentiful here and ONLY here. Never did find out what birds eat that, but a VERY interesting factoid emerged: the sap is very fragrant, and a resin like Frankincense is made from it. AND, it said if you break off a leaf, sap squirts out an inch high! The sap's good for stingray jabs, too. So I went back outside and found one (also have lots of those) and OMG! The sap squirted an inch in the air when I broke off a leaf! Plus it smells GREAT.

 

We were planning on cutting a couple of them down to create space around our planned bedroom addition, but now we're just going to work around them. Glad I chanced upon that. Now I want to harvest resin and get rich selling incense.

 

So then I had to google how to harvest sap from trees, how to boil it down to make resin (quite similar to maple syrup production), and before I knew it, it was time to make supper. Whole day gone, but then, we're retired. Who cares?