Sometimes it's just the smallest of things......

Call me crazy, call me odd or just call me nuts, so to speak, but yesterday I found something that continues to bring me the broadest of smiles.

I've lived in Texas for over 40 years and I've never seen before this curiously-designed, almost-personified happy little item, just laying on the ground. We were at the Dallas Arboretum and there it sat with all of its many little brothers and sisters either waiting to be swept away by workmen with their leaf blowers or taken back up once again high in the trees from which it first grew by a resourceful squirrel making ready his winter cache'.

I give you the Bur Oak Nut.

I'm very familiar with most of the native trees of this Great State starting with, of course, the pecan, the state tree. Texas has over 250 natives trees, including over 50 oak trees alone. One reason I am so familiar with all of the different trees is that for the last 30 years I've had to dig and scoop thousands of pounds of wet leaves out of swimming pools with the Swimming Pool  company we started in 1989. Despite counseling and cautioning pool owners about the importance of landscaping around their pool, they ignore our advice and make the wrong decisions, they will often  add the wrong trees.

And sadly, I guess that's why I've missed seeing the Bur Oak.  From a swimming pool perspective, you really don't want these relatively huge projectiles falling into your pool, let alone hitting you in the noggin.

Bur Oak trees are extremely drought tolerate due to their long taproot which is why they are the dominant tree of north central Texas. Bur Oak trees produce the largest acorn of any oak species that are 1 1/2 inches long and are almost completely covered with a furry cap.

And it is that furry little cap that I tell you looks like a little animated character waiting to have eyes painted on him, a little dot nose and a smile that will cause anyone who takes a moment to appreciate all that we have in the world that God has surrounded us with even if it is simply a nut on the ground.

Okay, maybe it's just a nut some animal will digest or maybe just be swept away. But for me, it's my little friend that I found while spending the day at Dallas's beautiful Arboretum. I'm gonna put a face on him and keep him in my truck. I think I'll call him, Skeeter.