Where Are the Wooly Worms?

[Jo McDonald]

OH  PLLLEEASE~~~~~~~~Pictures of Wilma and I "scurrying" ----- that is a stretch of the imagination, isn't it, Wilma?

   I pick up the hedge balls that fall from this HUGE hedge tree in our back yard, and that is about the extent of "my scurrying".
Hopefully after the Wellness Center gets open, my scurrying may be a dream come true.  I sure plan to give it my best shot, anyway.

[Ms Bear]

What do you do with the hedge balls?  Remember I am in Texas, grew up in Arizona so I have no idea what a hedge ball is.

[Teresa]

The puckered, fluorescent green fruit of the Osage Orange Tree (Maclura pomifera)   have many different names.   They've been known to be called; hedgeballs, hedgeapples, monkey balls, osage orange, mock oranges, horse apples, brainfruit, and green brain.  Just place the hedge ball in your cupboards, on the floor in your basement and garage, and around the outside of your house. Keeps bugs away.. Horses and cows like to eat them too..but sometimes they get lodged in their throat if they don't bite them in half..

The hedge balls drop from trees during August.
Contrary to belief..you CAN eat them too.. I have washed and scrubbed them.. sliced them and fried them like you do squash.. sprinkle with a bit of sugar and serve.. 

[Wilma]

Jo, my "scurrying" days are over.  But I do enjoy the fall harvests of nature's food stuff.  I just don't get to see a lot of it anymore.

Teresa, another thing the hedge balls are good for is food for the little animals.  I have seen squirrels and rabbits nibbling on them.  I used to think they were a nuisance, but even they serve a purpose.

[jarhead]

Teresa, Guess I never gave any thought to people not ever seeing a hedge apple. We had my Viet Nam  annual mini reunion at Flint Oak in July. One of our Corpsman was toting a hedge ball around and told me it was the biggest damn walnut he ever saw. I guess North Carolina doesn't  have Osage Orange trees.

[Tobina+1]

Believe it or not, I actually paid postage to ship hedgeballs back to my grandma one year (NW KS doesn't have hedge trees, either).  She used it for keeping bugs out of her garage in the fall.

Funny... they DO look like green brains!

[Judy Harder]

Back to the wooly worms. I have yet to see one. I walk every day my legs want to and have paid attention since this thread got started and if there are black wooly worms they aren't black enough for my eyes to see.

I have noticed that the spiders are spinning their webs to get all the flying bugs they can. Pretty sight when the sunlight shines through them.

I have used the Hedge Balls for ants......but had better luck with the "Tansy" and remember that when snow is on that the deer and most wild animals use it for a food source.

After all each tree and bush has an animal or something that uses it for a host plant. I think that is so fine.

Now, back outdoors to enjoy the rest of this day..

[indygal]

Where I grew up in central Illinois, we called them hedge apples. What we called horse apples came from horses, if you get my drift.

Judy, I too know that all things in nature have a purpose, even if we humans don't see or understand what it is.

[Roma Jean Turner]

We called them hedge apples as well.  They were good for throwing at each other on my block.  Ha, ha.

[Diane Amberg]

There are many, many very old Osage orange hedges just up the road here and it isn't fall until some of the local kids gather them up and line them in a row completely across the road so passing cars have to run over them. Splat! After you mentioned it I started looking for woolies too...not a one here yet either. The trees are starting to color up and we have skeins of geese overhead every day now.