A Twilight Zone Morning

Yesterday morning my husband came home from an errand and said it looked like there was a fire at our house as he was driving towards our home on our dirt road.  He said that it started to the south, then it looked like it moved right to our house, but it was moving very fast.  I poo-poo’d his comments and said that it was probably a dust devil (we can have some pretty big, pretty powerful ones where we live).  He said it was moving too fast, and that it didn’t look like there was rotation in the moving smoky clouds.  I still thought he had seen dust devils….until he looked out the windows to the northeast, and I saw was he was talking about.  There was a haze of what looked like white smoke above the trees and in the gorge to our east – then we would see a plume of smoke going straight north, but too fast to be a car driving - but, on what road?  And the ground was still moist enough from weekend rain/snow that the roads weren’t producing that much dust.  Then we saw it further to the northeast, then to the southeast, then by our neighbor’s barn.  He called our neighbors, and they said “just a dust devil.”  It kept happening, it kept moving.  We started humming the theme to “Twilight Zone” and got out the cameras to film this mystery from our back porch.  We didn’t smell any smoke.   It seemed to calm down a little, at which point we went inside and forgot about it for ~15 minutes - until I looked out my office window and saw it happening again.  Plumes here and there, with a haze across the trees and the gorge.  I said, we have to drive over there and see what is happening.  We took our cameras, hurried into my husband’s car and drove east on our road, into the middle of the haze.  And then it happened, and then happened again, and again.  A juniper tree literally exploded pollen, all at once, right as we drove by, then another, and another.  It was an awesome sight, and an event that we had never heard about before, nor seen before.  It was an amazing 45 minute show!

When we returned home I immediately googled exploding juniper pollen and found many pictures and videos – most call it cedar explosions, some refer to “cedar fever” - since around here the junipers have been called cedar trees (or mountain cedars) since the pioneers first occupied the region.  Apparently the trees have little capsules of pollen that all release at the same time on each tree, and many trees in the same location can release within a few minutes of each other.  It can be stimulated to release by shaking or hitting with a stick, or by winds (it was a bit windy yesterday morning, but not really very bad for around here).  Here is a link to some videos of this event, that happens in January in Texas:  http://republicofaustin.com/4-of-the-most-horrifying-cedar-fever-videos-youll-ever-see/.

Just another day in paradise, with a bit of twilight zone thrown in for excitement.