Soup Trees and Buzzing Bees

When you're out running or walking, and you smell something horrible, and you rule out sewage and burning garbage, it might be what Mike and I refer to as a soup tree. This is a tree that smells terrible when it blooms. It doesn't smell like piping hot tasty soup. It smells like old chicken soup that's been sitting on the counter for three days. 

And there's some kind of local bee that loves it. At least, I assume they are bees. The ridiculously loud buzzing sounds coming from the tree indicates, to me at least, zillions of bees. You know how in the fall in New England you might have a bunch of bees swarming around an apple tree? It's kind of like that, only it doesn't smell like sweet fermenting apples.

It's soup and bee season again. I noticed one smelly, buzzing tree on my run on Monday and a second one while running yesterday. We've also been catching periodic whiffs of them from our terrace. Yesterday when I ran under one, I noticed little green specks raining down from it. Whether they were bee droppings or tree droppings, I really didn't want to stick around and find out. I didn't want to end up smelling like that tree.

I'm not complaining about the trees, simply noting them and how I've never smelled a tree before that wasn't sweet when it blooms. I'm sort of fascinated by them and the bees that love them. 

We don't have gorgeous fall foliage. We have soup trees.