A sunny blog from yesteryear for your Thursday… Here’s to the darling little intruder!
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Yellow dots the lawn. I take a hard look at those common intruders again, shining like mini suns in the spring green.
The blooms are so perfect it’s startling. As a kid, I collected handfuls, delighting in the abundance of beauty in my fist, the stems staining my palms.
Thanks to Husband’s grandma and great-aunt, I tasted the homemade wine once. The women served it in tiny glasses—the kind dried beef was sold in once upon a time—and tossed the yellow liquid back like it was nothing. I took a slower pace, sipping the bitterness and wondering if the aging vintners harvested the flowers directly from their back yard or what.
In a big jar on the counter, I store tea of all kinds, but one of my favorites is made from the roasted root of the rejected plant. The Pest of the Lawn warms my cup and stomach, and I know my organs love me more and more with each swallow.
The taproots support our livers, the leaves make an earthy salad, and the blossoms are a hue that cheers us. It spreads throughout our grass, this perennial herb, giving us more benefits than the sod on its own ever could, but we’re taught to detest it. Why?
No one is born despising dandelions; we’re groomed to loathe them. And I wonder what else—or who else—we’ve been told to hate this whole time.
The subject runs as deep as the turf’s usurper (or is it a usurper?), and I need some refreshment to go with my thoughts.
Heading for the tea jar now…
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.