This morning Victor came out of the house to stare at me because I was standing on a chair with my head in the trees and he just sighed a little so I explained that I was just painting the trees for Halloween and then he sighed louder.
But then I explained that I’d noticed that our oak trees were filled with thousands of little orange balls and so I was painting jack-o-lantern faces on them so that when people walked by they would see hundreds of tiny little halloween pumpkins, as if a witch had cast a spell over our whole yard.
Then Victor was like, “But aren’t those food?” and I suddenly panicked that I had accidentally poisoned all the squirrels, so I used google lens to take a picture of two of them to try to identify them and google lens was like, “Nope. No results. Not falling for this bullshit again” and then I realized it was probably because I’d just uploaded a picture of two fuzz-covered, peach-colored balls and probably google didn’t want to be like, “YOU WANT SCROTUMS?” so I added “in my oak tree” to the search and google lens was like, “Phew. Okay, girl. I thought you were trying to get me in trouble. Those are just oak wasp galls.”
Which was not a relief to me because…what?
Apparently oak ball wasps lay eggs in the leaves of oak trees that develop into these parasitic balls and inside each one is a baby wasp just waiting to be born, which is the most heavy-metal thing I’ve heard all day. And so now I’m conflicted because if people see these and rip them down to take home then they might wake up the next morning with (admittedly not-very-aggressive and kind of adorable) baby wasps crawling out of them like a gentle but terrible curse, but also, that is exactly the kind of shit you should expect if you’re stealing magical balls from witches gardens and I do like the halloween authenticity of it. Some of you have not read your fairy tales and it shows.
Also, today is World Mental Health Day and so I should be writing about my books and asking you to buy them but instead I’m painting trees and writing about tree scrotum and this is exactly why I’m terrible at marketing, but also a pretty good indication that I know what I’m talking about when it comes to mental health issues. It’s also a good indication that I am close to being finished with my next book because that late-stage fear of “will people like it?” is ramping up to the point that my brain is like, “YES, I REALIZE I NEED TO CONFRONT THE FEAR OF WRITING BUT FIRST THINGS FIRST…THESE TREES NEED TO BE PAINTED.”
But now I am back at my desk, fingers covered in ink stains and ready to write. I hope you’re ready to read.
More soon.
The butterfly in the second picture helped my mental health today!
I am always ready to read! Also those little jack-o-lanterns are adorable and I love them. 🙂
An adorable baby wasp? I’ll stick with EVIL CURSE.
Love that you painted wasp balls!
I’m ready to preorder a copy of your prebook……if only that was possible. Will wait eagerly until it shows up on Nowhere Bookshop website.😊
Tree scrotum sounds like a heavy metal band name…..
Baby wasps being born out of tree scrotums is hard core. I’m totally here for it.
Love the little pumpkins but here because – and lord knows, I could be wrong, but… those leaves look nothing like the oak tree leaves where I’m from and now I’m shook.
Wow. Talk about the PERFECT way to celebrate/honor/recognize World Mental Health Day!
Did you know this when you set out to Halloweenize your Wasp Balls…Galls?
🐝🟠🟠
Now I’ve gotta go out and closely inspect our trees for Wasp Balls since I’m in the middle of Halloweening our yard.🎃🧙🏼♀️
Or am I a bad good witch or a good bad witch
Oak galls used to be used to make iron gall ink and still are for the anachronistic among us. Wait until the wasps have hatched before collecting them, though.
http://www.livingfield.co.uk/art/jean-duncan/making-ink-from-oak-galls/
Do NOT use the ink in a fountain pen. Dip pens or quills only!
Not dirty… if they are brown and have a hole, wasp babies are gone 😉
“Tree Scrotum” is a great band name.
Hallelujah !!!
You’re writing another book !!!
Yippee !!!!!
My google search must be more horny, because it had no problem searching for the hairy balls. It’s telling me it’s a Gaub persimmon. Which is much less fun!
Distinctions between good and bad witches are murky at best. Be the witch you want to see in the world and absolutely the one that makes Victor huff in frustration.
Those are the sweetest pumpkin faces! The surrounding tale and science makes this all so much more delicious.
Ready and waiting. Also wasps lay eggs in figs,but we eat them! Yum.
I’m so ready for a new book from you! I’ll be sitting on my porch, waiting. Hurry!
This has all things spooky season. Jack-o-lanterns, witchery, and cursed objects in the form of wasps (even if they’re baby wasps I’m assuming they’re evil). Also, I am looking forward to your next book. I hope you do a book tour again but that’s just me being selfish.
As an entomologist, this made my day! Gall wasps are so cool!
YAY!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited for another book from you! I have them all! Due to a lack of space in my apartment, I cannot keep all of the books I read like I would like to. So I have to narrow it down to ones I know I will read again. So I keep all of yours. I’m looking forward to having another one to find space for 🙂
Bawahahahaha! That’s totally something I would do- paint baby wasp ball scrotum thingies!
Don’t fret. Your next book will be Fabulous just like all of your others!
That’s absolutely *not* an oak, and those aren’t galls. That’s a member of the genus Diospyros and those are fruits. I can’t tell you which species from that pic, but related trees include ebony and persimmon.
There’s an app called Seek that lets you point your phone camera at a plant and get a good ID. Works on both wild and domestic plants, so I use it when I walk past someone’s garden and want to know what that pretty flower or cool bush is.
This might be my favorite post from you ever.
Oooooh, a new book!!!!!!!!
Fuzzy peach scrotum for the total win!! I’d paint pumpkin faces on them too.
I love that you painted the little fuzzy balls to look like Jack O’ Lanterns for Halloween, but the leaves don’t look like any kind of oak tree I ever saw?
I’m allergic to wasps, hornets, bees, etc but I know they have their place in our ecology, and they coexist with figs which I love to eat.
I can’t wait for your book!
You made my day with that statement and the lovely photos of the tree art you made and the butterfly enjoying the decor you created for them in their tree.
Oooh a new book!!! I can’t wait!!!
Also, tree scrotum is a hilarious thought. But those balls look cute (especially painted for Halloween) but I’m terrified of wasps. So I’ll maybe stay here. Away from wasp balls.
First, your painting made these terrifying things appear adorable! However, no. Even baby wasps are not good. Think of flying baby rattlesnakes concealed in an Easter egg. Love y’all!
I just read “L”’s comment. Maybe these are Loquats? Sweet/tart fruit
I am always ready to read your books. When it comes out, I’ll get one for myself and one for my cousin. I’d read one and pass it along to her, but I’m selfish and will add it to my “Jenny Books” shelf in my library.
I love the little jack o’lanterns in the tree and the monarch on the branch. Perks me right up on a day I needed perking. Thanks.
You might want to make a spooky-ish sign for the tree explaining about the wasps that are going to hatch from those adorable little jack-o’-lanterns. It’ll add more Halloween cred to your yard.
Is the giant skeleton still up? Are they getting additional decoration this season? The Strangelings of your tribe want to know – with pictures!
Love you platonically!
YES. JUST YES TO ALL OF THIS.
Looks like my live oak tree. I’m just up the road near Austin. 😊
Aaaa I love the warning above to not use iron gall ink in fountain pens….definitely comes across as a gremlin style rule. Wonder what happens…
Lol, I literally snort laughed WHILE IN A MEETING at “YOU WANT SCROTUMS?” I *think* I successfully converted it to a cough/throat clearing.
I’m just enchanted with your need to paint tiny jack o’lanterns. I adore you, and I’m still kicking myself that while I was in San Antonio last spring, I totally deluded myself into thinking that Nowhere Bookstore was in Austin. I think I was subconsciously terrified that you either would or would not be there, and I would or would not get to meet you. (I genuinely do not know which would be worse. The disappointment of not meeting you would suck, but also if I did meet you, I would go non verbal and probably cry.) Anyway, please don’t ever stop being your beautifully imperfect self. 💜💜
Omg tree scrotums! 😂 I think it’s cool that you drew jack-o-lanterns on them. It’s festive. If I see any wasp galls in trees then I’m out of there fast. I have a bee venom allergy. I’m going to be laughing about this all day. Thank you Jenny!
You are a good witch but those are not oak leaves!
But Siri tells me these are live oak leaves. Huh.
I love you guys. And they’re definitely oak trees. We have tons of them. They’re live oaks, which I guess look different from regular oaks? They’re super common in Texas.
Inadvertently discovering a way to stave off an enemy invasion sounds like a movie.
Remove magical balls, then replace with fake magical balls. The wasps will high-five each other and stop laying, and neighbors can light-heartedly take souvenirs.
Congrats on new book nearing publication, Jenny!
Is it wrong that I’m now hoping people DO steal your tiny Jack o lanterns of horror?
I’m just imagining that if you put one of the little oak gall jack-o-lanterns in a glass mason jar with a lid on it that you could watch the wasp burst forth from it as if the oak gall jack-o-lantern was a helpless victim of a Chestburster (Alien).
If I were there I would provide supremely annoying sound effects on behalf of the oak gall jack-o-lantern….there would be lots of high pitched sounds and HELPPPP MEEs and oooohhhh nnnnoooooos (reminiscent of Mr. Bill from SNL) while the wasp would explode out of it. I’ll see my weird little self out lol…Happy Halloween!
Your jack-o-lanterns are awesome! The potential wasps are a perfect trick for garden thieves. You’re great at marketing; a lot of people are going to forward this post! 🎃
We will love your book!
Always looking forward to your books
I’ve been jonesing for a new Jenny Lawson book, but I haven’t said anything because no pressure let the next book come organically you don’t owe me anything just because I fangirl. Thank you for entertaining me especially when I can’t rely on my own brain.
My mom always said we women no matter where we come from are all witch 🧹🧹🧹 talented or not because after all we give life and most of us are intuitive and when you become a mommy you are able to have eyes in the back of your head and see what mischief the children are going in to and if that not magic then it’s pretty close to it.You are right who ever steal your mini pumpkins from your tree deserves a baby wasp in there kitchen .
They say there’s no such thing as a perfect blog post, but…
I love all of this and especially the bit about stealing from witches and reading your fairy tales.
Also, this helped boost my mood which helps my mental health, so 10/10 on that front too!
I’m SOOOOOO ready for your new book! Can’t wait!
I 110% needed to read this this morning.
have you ever seen moth balls?
how did you get their tiny legs apart?
I hope you know how awesome you are! Thanks for all the laughs and tears and seeing people who are never seen.
Oh how I love you Jenny
Now I have the Halloween III commercial jingle playing in my mind. “Happy Happy Halloween, Silver Shamrock”
Your brain is wonderful
Keep writing
As a gremlin, I do appreciate these rules… Generally, any warning about not using an ink in a fountain pen is because the ink will clog the pen and then you’re left cleaning the gunky, inky, messy pen. Which I’m told is a pain, and best left to experts.
I wished on the butterfly.
This! https://bsky.app/profile/georgetakei.bsky.social/post/3l5wykg4wly26 Bookstore window idea! Excuse me, I just had this thought & had to get it to you asap 🤣 New book? Hell, yes, we’ll love it! Because, duh! You wrote it! 🤗❤️😘
From one Witch to another, I’ve heard that the best way to reply to the question, “Are you a Good Witch or a Bad Witch?”, is to respond with a deliberate stare and say, “I am an EXCELLENT Witch.”
Is that what oak trees look like is Texas? Because in New England that is definitely not an oak tree. Also, based on the way that the balls are attached to the tree, and the clusters with smaller undeveloped balls, and the little nub on the bottom, I think that they are fruit. Have to know your ingredients, or your witchcraft could be a disaster.
(Yep, it’s a Live Oak tree. Super common in Texas. ~ Jenny)
And this is why we love you!! ❤️🧡
I just love you!
Definitely a good witch!!
https://youtu.be/LuCkNOC9ESA
A new book! So awesome, I can’t wait.
You are the happy cause of me spitting my water across the room guffawing. Thank you. Much needed today.
I’m very much looking forward to another Jenny book! It’s the never-ending election season, girl! We all need your book with its laughter and wit and empathetic insights!
Please tell me you saw this! https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1g44c5z/taxidermist_turns_rats_into_sexy_showgirls_with/
(I have one! ~ Jenny)
Perhaps a warning sign by the tree: Caution! These little ball jack-o-lanterns are oak wasp galls, so are filled with tiny wasps (not the White Anglo Saxon types, either.)
You are pretty amazing at marketing, who doesn’t want to read about festively painted tree scrotums? Take my money!!! PS is it scrotums? Scrotai? Scrota? Autocorrect doesn’t seem to like any of these I guess it has a limit of 1
OMG girl, I can’t. You’re so funny
This is hilarious! You’ve turned a potential gardening disaster into a comedic goldmine. Your perspective on life is so refreshing, and your writing is always entertaining. I can’t wait to read your next book. Keep up the great work!
khalidelarbi
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