I went back to Cooper Hollow Road again yesterday to take photos of the wildflowers that Jack had pointed out on our wildflower walk of the day before. While snapping pictures, I ran into Jack’s friend Cotton. He wanted to know if I’d come to take pictures of the hog that had been stealing Jack’s watermelons. Cotton was in Jack’s field to get one of the few surviving watermelons to make “scent”.
When I expressed puzzlement, Cotton said that “scent” you buy is very high priced, so he figured he’d make his own by liquefying a watermelon in a food processor with a little alcohol to keep it from spoiling. I still couldn’t imagine why one would want this concoction. Cotton explained that after a hunter has been in a blind for a while, the smell of the hunter is blown all around the blind. The deer and hogs won’t come near enough to be shot, so the hunter has to trick the game with “scent”. You spray this “scent” all around the blind, and it masks the scent of the hunter (who, I presume, may be very odiferous after a few hours in the woods). I figure, if the watermelon “scent” doesn’t fool the deer or hog, Cotton can stay warm drinking the stuff.
I took leave of Cotton, finished taking my pictures, and went on to Jack’s. I wanted to harvest the corn left on the stalks before Jack and his brother Charles cut the stalks and bundled them into fodder shocks. Fodder shocks are those bunches of corn stalks that city folk use as fall decoration in their entryways. They were used as winter feed for livestock back when Coker Creek was corn-growing country, and most families kept livestock for food and work animals. While Jack and Charles create the shocks for nostalgic reasons, I want to experiment with the corn -- to see if it’s still good for human animal consumption.
As Charles cut the stalks with a machete-like corn knife, Jack helped me gather the corn. He suggested that the older, dryer corn would be good for “grated corn” for making “grated bread”. I looked for recipes for grated bread, and what I found is more like a corn pudding. I’ll have to ask Jack about that.
I sat down on the porch with Jack and recreated our wildflower walk with my pictures. Jack loves wildflowers and happily provided the local names for the profusion of blooms along our path. He had stopped to show me how the seeds of the Jewel Weed jump from place to place when stirred by a breeze or a passer-by. Golden Black-eyed Susan plants and several other bright yellow blooms tha Jack simply calls Sunflowers bloom profusely alongside the deep magenta of the New York Ironweed blossoms and the mauve Joe-Pye Weed. Jack said that his grandpa’s name for Joe-Pye Weed was Queen of the Meadow, the name he prefers because it has a royal bearing as it reigns over the surrounding foliage.
Jack talked about mountain mint -- which Cotton swears will repel gnats when rubbed on the skin. I don’t know if it repels gnats, but it sure attracts bees. This led to a discussion of different flavors of honey. Jack wondered if all the honey sold as Sourwood Honey is really made from sourwood. It seems that he’s been told that there’s not enough Sourwood trees in the country to produce all the honey sold as sourwood. He’s also has watched his Sourwood trees through a pair of binoculars and saw no bee activity. I’ll have to ask our local beekeepers at Seven Sisters Honey Acres about that.
Delicate deep pink blooms camouflage the pesky Velcro-like seed pods of the Beggars Lice which Jack says he removes from clothing by scraping them off with a knife. He had shown me the seed pods of a felled Sweet Gum tree, and told me how the women at the sewing factory used to paint them for Christmas ornaments. Then he talked about how he used to cut a gash in the bark of the tree to obtain the sap that local kids chewed before Juicyfruit came to these parts.
While Jack cut okra, I had spied a paper lantern-looking bud that opens into a beautiful blue and white flower that looks like a balloon flower and grows only in tilled fields. Jack’s grandmother called it Fly Poison. Jack had pointed out the brilliant red flowers that grow only on creek banks, saying that locals call them Cardinals. He had told me about the Bullweed along the path, and how much horses and cows like to eat it. He and Charles used to pick big bunches of it and take it with them to distract the cow while they milked her.
On our walk back to Jack’s house, I had asked about the tiny deep red berries on a plant that I recognized as something that grows on our land. Jack pulled a couple of berries and popped them in his mouth, explaining that mountain folk make beverages from the berries. I tasted the Sumac berries, and they were delicious – kind of tart/sweet like lemons. Jack wasn’t sure whether people cold or hot brewed the beverage, so I guess I’ll ask Mamie or Shirley.
Jack asked if I’d like to see the Wild Apricots growing on his fence. Apricot is one of my favorite fruits, so I was game. I was thrilled when we came on a fabulous Passion Flower vine in full bloom. When I exclaimed that passion flower was one of my favorite blossoms, Jack allowed that Passion Fruit is another name for wild apricot. He’s promised to call me when the fruit ripens.
Maybe I can make Passion Fruit jelly.
