As my readers know, I love it when my Clients are a family that includes some small children, especially boys between the ages of about 6 and 10, because they will help me find interesting things on the property.

A couple of months ago, I was out in the Boondocks (again), with a family of five, two boys and the youngest a girl. The two boys went out to explore the property while mom, dad, young girl, and Realtor sat at the kitchen table and went over papers.

Starting the dishwasher is one of the first things that I do because in a smaller condo or home, the dishwasher cycle can actually determine how long the inspection takes. Generally it takes me 1-1½ hours for every 1,000 square feet, with the deciding factors being:

• Vacant or furnished—gotta be careful around those priceless antiques from the Third Ming Dynasty or the reign of Louis XIV.
• Newer or older home—Generally a newer home won't have as many issues; not always the case, though.
• Talkative Clients with lots of questions—"Would you buy the home?" (Nope. I don't make enough money.) "How would you rank it on a grade of A through F?" (I don't grade homes, and if I did, I sure wouldn't use the A through F system; that just reeks of my grade school youth. Yuk.)
• Inquisitive children—"What are you doing?" "Why are you doing that?" "Will you give me a piggyback ride like my daddy does?"—Coloring books, crayons, and candy come in very handy. LOL
• Length of dishwasher cycle and whether or not one can advance it. I've seen short cycles of 27 minutes and long cycles up to 127 minutes.

After I start the dishwasher, I check on it about every 15 minutes to make sure it's not leaking, burning up, or otherwise having problems that require it to be shut down.

So after about 45 minutes, I was back in the kitchen checking on the dishwasher, when Little Johnny came running in with his hands behind his back." Mommy, I have something for you." He brought out his hands to show a beautiful, large white flower.

"Uh-oh," I thought, since I knew what it was. Before I could finish thinking "Uh-oh," mom screamed "Little Johnny! You stink!"

I let her calm down a little and then explained to her why Little Johnny stinked, stank, and stunk.

Little Johnny had found a Datura stramonium vine, also known as "common thorn apple," "Jamestown weed," or "Jimson's weed" (incorrectly, "jimsonweed").

The Datura genus is indigenous to the southern areas of North America although it has been naturalized throughout the world. Datura and its close cousin, Brugmansia, are sometimes used interchangeably, but geneticists have now convincingly separated them into two distinct genus. An easy way to tell the difference is that Datura has erect flowers while Brugmansia have drooping flowers. You can see a Brugmansia on my property in this blog entry of mine.

Datura and Brugmansia are also closely related in that they both contain powerful alkaloids which can be a skin irritant, highly toxic, and hallucinogenic. Getting the plant sap in your eyes can cause temporary blindness, and if you get it in your mouth, you might have a temporary inability to talk.

The plants of both genus are extremely fragrant at night. However, the Jimson's weed is extremely stinky if the leaves or stems are brushed up against, and even more so if crushed or broken. A good scrubbing with soap and water will usually clean things up. Remember to wash the clothes, too. 

Little Johnny came in with a beautiful flower
but a pretty good stink, too.

Russel's most recent blog entries

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6. You mean that little jar will hold all that water?
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8. Look! It's a field of... Grain? Cotton? Corn?
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10. If the shower head isn't working, just turn up the water pressure
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12. The Great Band in the Sky
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