She Likes Butter

Ella and I were out playing in the yard last week and I remembered how when I was a girl, the first order of business before actually playing was to make a dandelion crown for yourself. So we did and then we rubbed yellow dust all over our chins to see if we liked butter. Ella picked a small bouquet of dandelions and violets that I had to find a vase small enough for. I didn’t teach her the little rhyme that went "Momma had a baby and its head popped off!" upon which you'd pop the head off the dandelion with your thumb, but I did try (to no avail) to remember who taught me that morbid song. When the grapes and the weeds get bigger I’ll show her how to make a bracelet out of grape vine and fly catchers out of tall grass. We used to play for hours outside doing these things and I also used to believe if I ran away and had to live in an alley I could live on dandelion greens, grapes, mulberries, rhubarb and sweet clover for the summer.