Where the Wild Things Are

We have had a fabulous past several weeks. We made our yearly jont to Idaho to visit family. As usual it was much quicker than we had wanted but what time we had we loved. When we got back to Iowa we found much was alive and thriving. The beans were ready to pick, the wild black raspberries were flourishing and the jack-in-the-pulpit was glistening a beautiful green. Jack-in the huh? Yes, jack-in-the-pulpit. Let me tell you a little bit more about this beautiful plant. It has a glistening green head and turns a scarlet red in the fall. A few others interesting things about it - it contains calcium oxalate, the salt of an acid that is used in bleaches and rust removers. The strength of the acid is 3,000 times stronger than acetic acid found in vinegar. When consumed it is described as an inhumane burning sensation that feels like needles jabbing into the cheeks and tongue. It causes swelling of the mouth and throat which in turn can lead to death. These newly discovered facts make sense tonight after Matthew spent three hours last night SCREAMING after eating what I thought was a wild black raspberry with an ant in it. When we went to pick more berries today he showed me what he actually did consume... one small kernel of a jack-in-the-pulpit. He said it was green and looked like corn. Yup, it does.

Mr. Jack-in-the-pulpit himself.

I suggest you take Matthew's word for it and avoid consumption.

However, the wild black raspberries on the other hand we whipped up into a nice little tart for dinner tonight. This I would recommend consuming.