LOL! I had hoped you were doing something more fun, but... Love the story too. Take care, and let us know how the crab, salmon, and avacado went.

COÑOOOO!!!

Wow, thanks for the warning. I was just planning where to put a couple of Royal Ponciana's! Now I'm rethinking, cause I am also in a hurricane zone.
The good news is I haven't bought them yet.
I'm glad that is the worst of it for you.

Royal Poincianas remind me of the mimosa trees people plant around here, only their flowers are these absurdly fuzzy pink puffballs. The pods are similar but paper-thin with little itty-bitty flat seeds a little larger and rounder than a grain of rice. And I've heard that raking the leaves and pods up is a similar hassle. I wonder if they're related...

--TwoDragons

The problem with trees isn't that they insist upon shedding leaves and stuff everywhere, it's that people insist upon attempting to rake this stuff up because of some strange need to see the surface of their yard, pool, lawn furniture, and so on, instead of nice, smooth mounds of leaves and other tree debris.

At least poincianas are evergreens. My childhood home in Miami had a huge, old tree of a species called pongam. You've probably seen these trees here and there -- they use them in parking lots and such, despite the fact that they have leaves that turn bright yellow once a year and fall off all at once. Kind of like trees up north except they don't really seem to obey any kind of seasonal timetable. Anyway, this thing would leave huge mounds of leaves every year all over our yard, which my father insisted upon raking up, because he was trying -- throughout my childhood -- to grow grass under the tree. From grass seed.

1. You cannot grow grass from grass seed in Florida. You have to buy squares of turf.
2. There was no way anything that needed sun -- such as grass -- was going to grow under that tree. The leaves grew back quickly and shaded the entire yard.

Also the tree has some sort of oil in it, whatever it is it smelled bitter and nasty, and so did the leaves, flowers, and seedpods. I kept trying to persuade him to just leave all the leaves where they were -- so I could play my favorite I Hate Florida game, "Autumn." (I would run through the piles of leaves and pretend I was up north. I had never been up north in the fall, but I had seen pictures of kids up there doing this so I was sure it was a major Up North fall activity.) But he wouldn't listen to me so out came the rake and the plastic bags.

We call em Flamboyants down here and they are every bit as beautiful as they are a royal pain in the ass.

Dangerous in a storm if too close to your home...Next to Yucca they are the first to drop in a hurricane.

Hi - I found your blog shortly before the hurricane hit Florida. I'm really enjoying your writing, especially the cuban "sayings".

We have Royal Poinciana trees in Hawaii too. They are absolutely beautiful when in bloom, which has been lately. But I don't have any in my yard so don't have to clean up after them.

Another beautiful tree but also messy are the shower trees - rainbow, white, pink and yellow.

The last hurricane I experienced first hand was when Hurricane Dot hit Kauai in 1959. As I was just a small child I barely remember it. We were on a family vacation staying in cabins up at Kokee for two weeks. I do remember the next day we were unable to get down the mountain as fallen trees blocked the road. When we were finally able to get down I remember the beach completely strewn with driftwood.

Fortunately I didn't live on Kauai when Hurricane Iwa or Hurricane Iniki struck. But I live here now and I'm hoping no hurricane ever hits.