I have not fully grown, in the sense that the ten-year-old boy I once was is really only playing hide and seek inside me. He still steps forward now and again to throw a stick over a tree or kick at an anthill.
That boy in me is impulsive. He
regularly does things for no profitable reason, and boredom quickly brings him
out to begin fidgeting with anything at hand.
Yesterday, ten-year-old me took after
the yucca plants in my yard. One of the stalks bearing seed pods had bent over
in a way that annoyed me.
Our Montana variety of yucca is
sometimes called soapweed. Native American tribes such as the Lakota, Dakota,
and Blackfoot used the mashed or boiled roots of the plant as a natural soap
and shampoo, particularly for washing hair and treating scalp conditions.
Theoretically, the seed pods can be eaten when still young and green inside. A
few years ago, as an adult, I tried eating a green yucca seed pod.
Ungood.
Absolutely bitter. Medicine-tasting
stuff.
Anyhow, I whacked down several yucca
stalks bearing seed pods and then sliced several pods open just because I
could. I like the patterns produced by the seeds. Yucca are proficient
producers of seeds—a single plant might produce 600 to 6,000 of them.
Just in case you’re bored right now,
I’m sharing photographs of the seed pods—including one featuring the pods
alongside a Cold Smoke beer. This will give you some manner of comparison
between delicious and yucky.
—Mitchell Hegman
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