Let's Go For A Ride........

After this seemingly endless winter, I am looking forward to summertime. I enjoy summertime for all the traditional reasons but especially because it means the kudzu will soon be in bloom.                    

Kudzu starts to bloom in the late summer, around the end of August where I live. My kids start to give me a really hard time when I see the first blooms starting to arrive because I slow down as I drive by and they know what that means; sometime in the near future they will be forced to trudge beside me and snip off the blossoms with a pair of scissors so that we can make jelly.

Alex helped me the first year. We were a site! It was hot and muggy and all sorts of critters lived in the vines and things too small to see always seemed to be creeping up the back of your neck. I found it to be thrilling and creepy all at the same time. Alex did not share my excitement.

I like to believe that even though she half heartedly complained as we snipped and pulled and snipped some more we did actually have a good time just being in each others company. She will never admit it but she smiled most of the time and she really worked hard at getting the best blossoms she could. I was very proud of her.

My good friend Trina helped me the same year as Alex; she unwittingly got into my not realizing that I was on red alert for the sign of blossoming kudzu. She was a trooper as well and I did my best to be kind and backed the bed of the truck up underneath the canopy of a bunch of trees that lined a little side street.

The trees themselves where nothing more than a suggestion of what lied beneath the wall of kudzu that disguised them. We cut and pulled and cut some more. Trina is now very careful to examine my vehicle before climbing in during the latter days of summer and if she spots a bucket or any other sort of container that I might be able to use for my annual blossom harvest she quickly exits and says she will just follow me in her own car. Whatever….

The next year I called my mother-in-law and horns waggled her into going with me. We snipped and chatted and sweated and climbed and laughed quite a bit.

A friend of mine called and a message on my phone that we were giving everyone a great show on the side of the road. My mother-in-law laughed. Said she wouldn’t be surprised if someone reported an old lady floundering around in the kudzu and that it needed to be checked out immediately. It is apparent she must suffer from Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia to be out there crawling around in it like that.

Last summer my sister accompanied me on my quest for the best blossoms for jelly making. We found a perfect patch not far from her house. She was a trooper and made the harvesting fun. Will she go again this coming summer? Not too sure, I will have to wait and see I guess.

I have come to the conclusion that most of my family and friends are sharp enough to think twice when I suggest we go for a ride and “see what we can see”. Either that or the fact that I show up for this ride in the dead heat of summer wearing long sleeves and pants with a ball cap on to make sure the ticks, chiggers and other critters will have to put up as big a battle as I do if they want to take a bite out of me is a dead giveaway.

I guess I have to face the fact they have figured me out and know that this ride will take them off of the beaten path or perhaps even just on the side of the road, collecting blossoms under duress much like the trustees of the local prison collecting trash……that is if you listen to Alex tell the tale. I say it is not that bad!

But they do usually only help me once, wonder what’s up with that………..