Here is a sweet little snippet from my new novel, THE ROCKY ORCHARD.
“Good morning, dear!” Lula said brightly as she stepped into the porch. “I brought you some flowers I picked along the way. Thought it would brighten up our table to have a nice centerpiece while we played our gin rummy.” Lula held out a bunch of wildflowers on long stems, stunning little orange and yellow spotted blooms that looked like tiny orchids.
“Oh my God, they’re beautiful!” Mazie said.
“Watch this,” Lula said as she reached out a single finger and touched what looked like a green pea pod attached to one of the stems. With Lula’s barest touch, the seed pod burst apart and shoots of curly green confetti shot out.
Mazie gasped, then laughed. “Oh my gosh, Lula, I’d forgotten all about these things!”
“Aren’t they a marvel?” Lula said.
“I used to love these!” Mazie gushed. I remember the first time my brother and I discovered them. The orchard was filled with them; they appeared out of nowhere.”
“That’s because they’re wildflowers,” Lula said, “All wildflowers appear out of nowhere.”
“I can’t even remember which one of us – my brother or me – accidentally touched one of the seed pod things while we were looking at the flowers, and BOOM, an explosion of…crazy seeds, right? Crazy seeds disguised as tiny party streamers! We spent the whole afternoon combing through the orchard and popping the seed pods. A whole afternoon. When we’d found every single one, we lay down on the ground, head-to-head, staring up at the clouds and making up stories. That was a great, great day.” Mazie threw her head back and laughed.
“It’s jewelweed, sometimes people call it orange jewelweed or spotted jewelweed,” Lula said. “The common name is touch-me-not. You can see why.”
“We never had any idea what they were. Looked for them every year, but I don’t think we ever found them again,” Mazie said. “Made it seem like some kind of…magic.”
“Oh, wildflowers do seem to have minds of their own – they appear here and there and disappear. But it’s Impatiens Capensis, not magic,” Lula said.
“What?” Mazie asked.
“That’s the Latin name for the plant – Impatiens Capensis.”
“You’re starting to remind me of my mother. She knew a lot of things about a lot of things, too,” Mazie said.
“The juice from the stems and leaves has long been used for itching – going back ages. It can actually stop poison ivy from getting bad if you rub the juice on right away. I’ve even heard tell that it can clear up ringworm, and athlete’s foot as well,” Lula said.
“Now you’re really reminding me of my mother. When I was a little kid, I was convinced she had to be making stuff up – no one could really have such an encyclopedic knowledge of so many different things. Later on, we used to tease her that she got some kind of secret newsletter that was filled with random bits of information, and she would memorize every bit of it while we were at school, just waiting for an opening to throw in some new tidbit of knowledge.”
“Everybody around here knows about ol’ jewelweed,” Lula said.
“ ‘Everyone around here’ just happens to know that Latin name?”
“Oh, well, I suppose not,” Lula said. “Now that you mention it.” She gave Mazie a wry smile. “How about we put these beauties in some water and play some cards?”
“Thank you for bringing jewelweed, Lula. Thank you for reminding me of one of the very best days I ever had,” Mazie said.