Thursday, August 31, 2006

Little Survivalist


Micah is turning out to be quite the survivalist. He is always bringing things to me and asking if they can be eaten. Lately, he has taken to savoring the flesh of the queen palm seed. We have a huge tree in the front yard that is continuously dropping "berries." They are orange, and mostly hard, but are covered in a fibrous, sweet flesh thats about and an eighth (or two) of an inch thick. Micah scrapes off the flesh from the fibers as if he was eating an artichoke, and chews on it forever. Natural gum, I suppose. We should probably start a plant identification course for our yard. Then the little squirrel might learn to avoid poison ivy and deadly nightshade. Pictured at left are queen palm fruits (not poisonous, but not generally conceived as edible, either; typical squirrel diet), berry from the "jamaican cherry" tree we're growing, and a leaf from the "cranberry hibiscus" shrub (tangy, and supposedly good for teas and salad, though we've yet to try).




Another joy he has is looking out his bedroom window for "ground apples" as we call them. The vine is really a nuisance weed, but produces a spiny orange pod with slimy red seeds inside. It's really known as a balsam apple, and is related to the cucumber and bitter melon species.
The kids do not like them (I had to fry one for Micah one day, because he thought he might rather like it cooked), but I have seen them sold dry in bulk online. My first occurance with this was when Micah was about 18 months old. He was playing by the front porch, and I discovered him eating something bright red. I grabbed the flower and leaf, and shot off to the computer for a few moments of bristling fear. Now I love the moments he wakes up in the morning, bolts upright, and looks out the window shouting, "look mom, grOUnd aaap-ples!" You'd think it was snow.