“When I was a child, playing with my little friend. We made all sorts of little suppers in our dishes for our doll guests. One of our favorites was to go to the nearest Ragweed and gather those fading knobby blooms…Did you ever put your hand at the end of the spikes and pull upward..the little drying pealike pieces will fall in your hands…We would make a large, (so to speak) toy aluminum pot of these baby peas for our supper…I was out by the chicken house yesterday and couldn’t resist putting my hands on the ragweed and pulling up a handful of little peas, and remembering the long ago days of playing house with my friends.”
~B. Ruth
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Tipper
I remember making Stone Soup which was an old pot filled with water with a few pebbles and weeds thrown in.
What we called and still call ragweed doesn’t look like that. Another name for what we call ragweed is Queen Anne’s Lace which I always thought were so pretty as a child.
Anyone else call ragweed Queen Anne’s Lace?
Also I wonder what the other name for these particular ragweeds in this picture are. Maybe we also call that weed something else.
Never know. LOL
God bless.
RB
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Tipper,
I can’t believe I missed this post until tonight. We woke up at 3:30 AM this morning and was on the road by 4:15 AM…We arrived at Pickens South Carolina Jockey lot/Flea Market early morning and started our search for bargains.
WOW, there was a crowd. A beautiful first day of Fall. Farmers were there with the fall vegetables. Turnips, Scuppernongs/ Muscadines, sweet taters, okra, arsh taters, a few had some late peaches and of course fall apples.
I could not to help me find a Candy Roaster anywhere…No one had any at all…Just pumpkins!
I saw fields of ragweed, wild artichoke etc. lots of migrating butterflies! The leaves are turning that olive green shade, and we saw a few trees changing color completely!
Found a few great bargains. Lucked up on a set of Sea Horse shaped crystal candlesticks! Made by and marked in the glass with their etched mark Waterford (from Ireland), on top of that they still had the original green sticker. “Even a Blind Pig finds an Acorn once in a while”! ha
I guess early bird got the candlesticks. Still can’t believe it! Found a few pieces of junk jewelry (cheap) for my crafty Christmas trees. A few toothbrush holders (ceramic) I use to hold my paint brushes. Some divided heavy ceramic Japanese plates, I use for mixing paints…
We came back home with a new critter! The guy saw me coming!
He wanted to give his last two puppies away. A beautifully marked “Whatisit”! A very rare dog indeed! He said, (the giver away person) that I was so lucky that he, the “Whatisit”,
chose me for his caretaker! ha Yes, my luck was running high today!
He has a long nose, with the “smeller portion” being a beautiful brown. Alert and perky flop over ears, brown eyes,
a collar marking of white with with spaniel spotted brown streaks, the same for the front long legs. Light tan underbody with a beautiful darker tan body. No dew claws. His back legs are same color as his body. We are pretty sure the “Whatisit” is a cross between, a brown/white Water Spaniel, brown Greyhound, tan Dachshund and he said Brown Rottweiler!
Tipper, I am sorry I missed this post this morning. There was some more telepathy going on as I looked over the fields of goldenrod, ragweed, etc. I really think I have less allergies because we played in the ragweed as a kid, probably desensitized me somewhat.
One big hill of Kudzu, reminded me that it would soon be frost bit and would turn a lovely playful brown. Just perfect to grab those big cardboard boxes, break them down and slide downhill on dead Kudzu!…What fun in the old days!
Ah! The sweet memories of childhood!
I’m with Miss Cindy on this one!
I used to do the exact same thing, b.Ruth! I wonder if that’s why ragweed doesn’t crank up my allergies the way some plants do…maybe I built up a natural tolerance with all my “pea-picking.”
This morning I was doing something similar, running my hand up long shoots of bittersweet for a handful of leaves to feed my goats who were lined up on the other side of the fence. They’ve already eaten up all the bittersweet on their side – it’s a big part of their job here, and they are very good at it.
How sweet. I remember making mud pies with my friends. We would use dirt, water,grass, and whatever else we could find. We would “cook” them on big flat stones. We sure had fun back then. So sad that kids miss out on that kind of fun because of video games etc.,.
Pam
scrap-n-sewgranny.blogspot.com
Ragweed was food for the Pigs an my Grandparents home in Robbinsville N C. I do remember all the weeds we played with, however. Plantain buds, seed pods or whatever they were called, stem folded over, made a handy “Shooter” Elderberry stems made “Pop Guns” with the pith removed and a push stick for newspaper “Spitballs.”
Tipper,
In my garden I have those Giant
Ragweeds. If I hadn’t hurt my back I could have kept them down. But those boogers grow 15 feet high and smother out anything.
I played with those little ragweed seeds too when I was young. But for the past two years allergies have really made my nose run…Ken
We actually made small baskets out of the burrs from (I think) Burdock along the creek bank. How those little hands stood holding and molding a basket I’ll never know. We would spend hours foraging for our meals and crafts.
Also milkweed pods became our fish–that really takes a vivid imagination. Since we were serving up our dishes to our young gullible friends and sibling, it is reassuring to google and find the pods are only mildly toxic. The youngest sibling once tasted a mud pie without grumbling. Now they complain if the French Fries are too crisp!
Enjoyed B Ruth’s post a bunch.
I never did much cooking as a child but I did use pot lids as the steering wheels on my imaginary vehicles. If you ever saw a kid sitting with a pot lid in his hands and a bunch kids in straight chairs lined up behind him, that was me driving my school bus.
Well I can understand that urge to touch those beautiful autumn seed pods. In fact just yesterday I gathered a BUNCH of the purple and the white TALL flower stems. I took both stalks to my ‘NEW YORK’ Garden and removed ALL THE SEED pods. Now I am hoping they will come back next year in their very special display this time of year!
Eva Nell
I am no longer on FB but it is such a memory to recall those child like days of cooking using different weeds or plants I like Barbara post
That was back before we ever heard of allergies. I’m inclined to think people didn’t have’em till they were told they existed. I sometimes tell people we didn’t know we were poor until LBJ told us about it. Then it took me twenty-plus years to figure out that income is only one measure of poverty and not a very good one at that. But I reckon it served its purpose then and still serves it now.
Oh my goodness. Those of us with wild hay fever would never touch ragweed ‘peas’. We did, however, make mud pies and decorate them with rose petals. We also used our hollyhocks and any other blooms we could get away with picking for other play. But by ragweed time we were sneezing our heads off so stayed as far away from anything blooming then.
Just seeing broom straw, golden rod, rabbit tobacco and aster give me similar feelings. Autumn is such a reflective time of year and, like many folks, it’s my favorite.
I’m afraid all my familiarity with Ragweed is the fall allergy season!