It Pollened Last Night

BranchToon.com

I know the birds and bees love it, but pollen has become another nasty chore around our house.

Pollen

Cleaning pollen has become an annual major decision. Do I clean in April, or wait until May? Is it kind of like planting Spring plants and I wait until after Easter? Stevie Nicks and I sing the same tune about it.

Well, did she make you cry,
Make you break down,
Shatter your illusions of love?
And now tell me is it over now?
Do you know how?
Pick up the pieces and go home
Go home
Go home

When and how do I clean all of this gold dust off of every nook and cranny on my porch? Waiting to clean has been troublesome in a couple of ways. First, we can’t really enjoy our porch until it’s thoroughly cleaned, and who wants to clean it every time we go outside? My cushions are yellow, so you can’t really see it on them, but you can on your clothing when you stand up.

Paw Prints in Pollen

And then my sweet kitty tracks it inside on my freshly mopped floors and makes me mad at him. (For a second.) He has also taken to rolling in it on the concrete floor. Fortunately, I’ve always liked yellow and black together, and it goes with the color scheme of my porch.

Yesterday was the day for me. I’d stared at gold dust long enough, so I gathered my arsenal of supplies and set out to clean up after the storm. Yes, pollen has become a storm in my vocabulary.

Pollen Cleaning Supplies

  1. Blower
  2. Paper Towels
  3. Broom
  4. Whisk Broom
  5. Windex
  6. Clorox

The first thing I did was to blow off the porch to get rid of any pine straw or grass tracked in from outdoors. Then I used the whisk broom to sweep off all of my furniture, including the cushions. Man, was I making the dust fly!

Next, I swept the rug and floor to free them from the allergy infested dust and used the paper towels to sneeze into while they just lay there listening. Then, I cleaned all of the surfaces with windex. Up until this stage, I felt like all I was doing was moving dirt around and blowing my sinuses out of my head.

Now on to the Clorox job. We’d had such a wet winter that there were several spots of mildew on the porch, so I poured straight bleach on each place and scrubbed it with my broom. It dried quickly so I don’t have to worry about the babies getting into it. And finally, I poured about a teaspoon into my fountain to clean out the pump.

Fountain

 Alas, my porch was clean and we can enjoy it for a few hours before the next storm.

Pollen-free Table

Pollen-free Porch

This could be the calm before the storm.

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