Yard Food

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As a kid, I was fascinated with all the flowers, fruit trees and pretty weeds in our yard. Sometimes I sampled things around the neighborhood, too.

I loved to get a close view of all the innards of a tiger lily, daffodil, iris or a rose. The scents were intoxicating to a little girl, and I loved the variety of colors like my crayons only better. Daddy grew them all mainly in the front yard. His favorite was yellow roses, and he planted a bush by the corner of the house in the backyard.

Squatting down to see what grew naturally under the shrubs across the front of the house, I discovered a tiny green plant with pods. My best friend and I pulled a couple of pods off to smell them. A couple of cat sniffs determined no odor, so we chewed on them. They tasted a little sour, but it became a favorite when we had tea parties in the yard. Mama said it was sourgrass.

Our backyard fence that divided our yard from the neighbor’s had honeysuckle climbing all the way to the trench at the end. When the bees weren’t around, I loved to suck on honeysuckle. I don’t remember who taught me how.

A grumpy old lady on the corner had a crabapple tree. Ours was the first house on the street, so her backyard met the side of our front yard. When we kids got together, crowd mentality was king, and we wanted those crabapples. One of the brave ones would climb her fence and throw a few apples to us hoping she wouldn’t catch us. Well, apparently she was watching from her kitchen window once and came to the porch to scold us. After that day, we realized we had a problem. If someone missed catching the ball, and it went into her yard, she kept it. I guess I never told Mama because I don’t think I ever apologized.

My other best girlfriend, everyone needs two, and I went down to the field of electrical towers at the dead end of her street. She showed me wild blackberries growing, and we filled our pockets with them. Wonder if we even thought to wash them before eating until our tongues were purple?

Miss my childhood some days and being fearless to eat from the yard!

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