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and blanketed Atlanta with a bright yellow coverlet of pollen. Someone had asked when we moved down here whether the name of our neighborhood, Oakhurst, derived from a preponderance of oak trees. I answered then while we have a lot of oak trees, I didn’t think we had any more oak trees than other neighborhoods. This has been definitely proved by the fact that the entirety of Atlanta is covered in oak pollen, not just our neighborhood. I noticed it first at twilight, so I thought there was just dust all over everything, but the next morning revealed a radioactive looking landscape. The situation just got worse and worse because of amazingly mild weather and no rain. It was so warm and pleasant that I had left the windows in our apartment open for almost a week. After about the fourth day of this, I realized that in so doing, I had let all the pollen inside. I picked up papers that had been left on my desk and they felt like they were covered in chalk dust. Two days later I went to clean up the kitchen and realized that it was all over the dishes in the drain rack and all over the stove. It seriously is like living in a classroom pre-whiteboard days that had not been cleaned ever, and so the yellow chalk dust just accumulated and accumulated. At the height of it, the pollen count for our area was above 2000 while a normal level (I think even for this time of year) is around 100 or 200. Apparently, thankfully, neither Josh nor I are allergic. Especially since this apparently happens every year.

It has since rained and the pollen is beginning to be washed away, but I took some pictures at the end of last week to document this oddity. I meant to take some pictures on campus since it was most dramatic to see the marble steps of the buildings with yellow edging and film, but I kept forgetting to bring the camera to school. So, I took a little walk to the coffeeshop last week with the camera. The pictures can be seen on my photo page at this site (see column on the right) or at my flickr page. The pictures don’t always capture the eerie yellow that distinguishes the pollen from dust, but I think you’ll get the idea.