Life Lessons

When I was young, we had a honeysuckle vine growing beneath the kitchen window of our house.  To this day I remember how it smelled when the blossoms covered it in the spring and the butterflies, moths and bees buzzed around it seeking the sweet sustenance those flowers contained.  My mother showed me how to lightly pinch the base of the flower and gently pull the pistil out which drew a drop of nectar from the flower that was a pleasant treat.  It is a technique of foraging that I suspect is rarely taught to children nowadays.

It would be difficult to make a meal of the tiny drops of nectar, but the energy contained by them would certainly act as a refresher to someone in need.  That source of energy is what attracts the insects to the plant.

Dad didn't want the honeysuckle growing in the flower bed because it tended to spread and crowd out other things that he wanted to grow.  I was tasked with digging it out which was quite a chore since it required finding all of those runners and spreading roots.  I always enjoyed digging in the dirt as a kid and it wasn't the onerous chore kids today might think it to be, but it was bittersweet because I subsequently missed the Spring treat of robbing the nectar from the flowers.

I vividly recall the honeysuckle to this day and am reminded of it when I walk in the woods of our current small acreage.  In it I see life lessons taught to me as a youngster.  1) Nature provides. 2) Understanding how nature provides and how to utilize it is important. 3) There are prices -- the cost/benefit of everything. 4) Work is necessary to gain what we want but it sometimes carries the added cost of what we might have had.