How About Them (Crab)apples?

Tea: White Grapefruit

Music: The Alarm, "Rain in the Summertime"

Time: Night.

The trip home from church tonight turned into an extended crabapple picking session at one of the local parks. At some point, there will be jam or preserves -- crabapples being pretty darn sour when eaten out of hand. I still have to pop in a few, though. Sour isn't always a bad thing.

No lectures, please. Anything on public ground that doesn't say "do not pick" is fair game. I've brought home wood ear mushrooms from a nature preserve in Blue Springs, Missouri, and cloud ears from the Arboretum in Overland Park. (Yes, it does say "No picking plants" in both places -- but mushrooms aren't plants. If there is a loophole, it must be taken.)

There's something about providentially provided produce (Yes, I do like to eat my p's) that adds an extra bit of satisfaction to the consumption.

I spent my high school years on the southwest Kansas prairie, eating prickly pears (the fruit and the pads), lambs' quarters, sandhill plums and yucca shoots.

When I was at Kansas State, a walk back from Eisenhower Hall at the right time of the year would net crabapples from the quad and wild plums and rose hips from bushes by the Student Union.

(Never thought about it, but I'm sensing a theme here.)

I've also hunted and fished, which bring their own (and equally valid) sorts of satisfaction. But it was foraging, not hunting, that kept us going back when the cave walls doubled as art galleries. Can't always find animals ... but those roots and berries and tubers are right there, if you know just where to look.

I'm pontificating, I know. I'll shut up and eat a crabapple.