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Buying a Home in Northern Nevada? Tumbleweeds May Be Your First Visitor!

By
Real Estate Agent with Humphrey Home Connections Realty, Reno, Nevada

Reno tumbleweedsIf you are looking for a home in Northern Nevada, pretty much anywhere in Reno or Sparks outside of the immediate downtown areas, among your many new friends coming by to visit will be tumbleweeds. Tumbleweeds are the remnants of sagebrush plants that break loose from their stems and take off to travel wherever the wind may take them.

When I was a kid living on the east coast, my parents bought me a storybook with one story for each day of the year. The stories took place in a small town, and over the course of the year I became acquainted with the various folks that lived there. Out of all those stories, the only ones I remember were about a young girl about my age that wrote a note and stuck it into a tumbleweed, a la message in a bottle. It was found far away by a guy who wrote her letters from his travels throughout the rest of the book. I thought that was the most amazing thing; I had never heard of a tumbleweed before, much less seen one...how could a dead plant travel over a long distance? I decided that seeing a tumbleweed was definitely on my wish list.

Flash forward twenty thirty a bunch of years, and here I sit in Reno, Nevada watching the tumbleweeds roll by out my window. They are a lot less romantic today. They tend to blow all over the place on the windy days so common in Reno. As fast as you clean them up, more arrive to take their place They have family reunions anywhere they find a place to lodge, like the corner where your garage meets your house so that you can back over them when you pull out in your car, sending the remnants flying everywhere.

The best part is they are so fun to clean up. They can be piled up and burned, given a wind-free day, but that is not very eco-friendly, and as dry as it is in Reno, can even be dangerous.

Reno tumbleweedsI have been known to dislodge them and let them blow onwards if none of the neighbors is looking ;-). They are very prickly, and gloves don't help much. The best approach is to cram them into a heavy duty bag and then stomp them as flat as possible, wearing heavy boots of course, then cram in some more.

Whenever I find myself grumbling about tumbleweeds, I look up at the mountains and remind myself of what a fabulous place Reno, NV is to live. Then I think about how pretty the sage is when it blooms, and how wonderful it smells every time it rains. Compared to hurricanes, tornadoes, and other scary things people in other parts of the country have to deal with, tumbleweeds don't seem so bad!

 

 

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Copyright © 2012 Linda S. Humphrey, all rights reserved

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Linda S. Humphrey, M.D., CDPE, e-PRO, EcoBroker, GREEN

Broker/Owner - Humphrey Home Connections Realty, LLC

cell: 775-287-4665

office: 775-232-8515

www.HumphreyHomeConnections.com

Comments (1)

Linda Humphrey
Humphrey Home Connections Realty, Reno, Nevada - Reno, NV
CRS, Broker/Owner HHC Realty

Ok, so my husband the Nevada native just read my blog and informed me that tumbleweeds do not come from sagebrush, but rather from Russian Thistle. Mea culpa. The rest of my story passed muster, apparently.

Apr 14, 2010 10:43 AM