Class materials: blessings from the Universe

This morning I poked around the White Pine (Pinus strobus) stand behind our house in search of new pine cones from which I might harvest some seeds. Unlike flowering plants whose seeds are enclosed within an ovary, conifers (gymnosperm = naked seed) bear bare seeds on the scales of female cones. I'd read that White Pine drops fresh cones from late August through September. Even though the seeds usually disperse before the cone drops, I imagined at least a few intact cones might make it to the forest floor. No such luck in the woods today.  

So I decided instead to go for a nice walk down the road just for some exercise and fresh air under a sunny, blue sky. As soon as I turned out of our dirt alley onto the paved road, what should appear? There on the asphalt, I saw this freshly dropped pine cone still bright green, coated and dripping with pitch. (insert imaginary audio clip: squeal of delight) What a find! Too sticky to pull apart right now, I collected it in a baggie (because I almost always carry a baggie or two for impromptu finds) and brought it home to dry out a bit.

With any luck at all, I'll be able to harvest some seeds which I plan to laminate along with the 5-needle fascicles. Blessings like this seem to happen just often enough for me to truly appreciate how the Universe provides exactly what I'm looking for.

UPDATE: It's been a week or so since I set the fresh pine cone on a south-facing window sill, protected by a sheet of waxed paper to keep the sap from getting onto the wood finish. After a few days, I bent and twisted the cone stalk to see if the seeds might be ready to release but only a few broken seed wings popped out. This morning (September 5th) I saw a couple of winged seeds had dropped from the cone - a gentle shake yielded many more! Notice how the now-dry scales have opened up. Now, the final step is to laminate the seed along with the 5-needled bundle.