There's a buckeye in my back yard!

[Zom]

Strange, but true. Ay-Ziggy-Zoomba's sole UK representative has a buckeye tree in his back yard.

In the UK, for "buckeyes", read "conkers". My "conker" tree grows out of a cliff face, and it does struggle, but every year it produces a crop of conkers/buckeyes. I've thought about bringing it down in the past (12" 'saw bar would do), but my Dad is an OSU alum, and he gets a bit of a kick out of having it around. If I think of it in terms of what it means to the State of Ohio rather than just a university, it is really quite easy to live with. In many ways, it actually helps me remember my fond memories of Bowling Green.

Things to do with buckeyes

School kids in Britain play a game with conkers (buckeyes) this time of year. Once you get your hands on that dark brown nugget, you drill a hole through the middle, thread a cord through, find someone else with one in the school playground, then you take turns trying to smash each other's conker. Quite often, you miss the other fellow's conker and get his knuckles instead - ouch. In fact, the less you like your opponent the more you tend to get his knuckles, if you know what I mean. Kids go to all sorts of lengths to make their nut the toughest - some leave them for a season, some bake them, others soak them in vinegar, bake them, then leave them for a season. Its been a boys thing for about 400 years, when the Horse Chestnut was introduced to the British Isles - there are quite a few in Crete, too, perhaps surprisingly. Unsurprisingly, girls just haven't found the interest "to have a go" in the last 400 years

If you want to learn more about conkers, take a look at this web site

What do you do with your conkers?

[Mr. Frieda]

Cheers! This sounds like a blast.

I might bust this out at Homecoming.

thanks for sharing