Did you know that the Declaration of Independence was written in pokeberry ink? How’s that for a little Independence Day trivia (I read it here).

Poke salad grows all over my yard. I am watching the berries closely so I can pick some to make my own inks and dyes. I do not cook pokeweek though lots of folks down here have been known to (my grandmother recently asked me if I was going to cook mine). I am excited about the berries though. I plan on doing some fun things with dyes made from wild onions, pokeweed and walnuts this fall.

Oh, you might also be interested to know that I love this song. I can’t help it. I do.

What do you think this is? A chokecherry? An Alabama chokecherry? A black cherry. Something else? We have a few of these trees planted in our upper meadow very near the blueberries. We have tons of berries on the trees now but we have no idea what they are. It seems they are deliberately placed in a neat little row in the same part of the meadow where the walnuts and mulberries, blueberries and figs have all been planted. The man that built our house was a tree surgeon. He obviously loved plants and planted some interesting things around here. We are trying to figure out what everything is and could take years. We find something new every season (i.e. hickory nuts, mulberries, muscadines). These were overrun with vines and privet but after some clearing this past fall they seem to be thriving. They are just a mystery to us for the moment. Don’t want to eat them if they are bad for us obviously but if they are something good then–well, we’d like to know! We have the southern plant books out and I am googling but I know a few of you out there are plant savvy so I thought I would ask what some of you see when you look at this photo. Hmm.

Click on photo for larger image.

My kids call these naked trees.

No. Really.

I am reading this right now. She was fascinating.

I said I would post one vintage pic each Wednesday. I lied. I will only post vintage pics on Wednesdays but I may post more than one photo each week.  I have so many old photos and so many of them are bad, bad. I am having fun going through my old CDs of digital photos though. I just have to share some of them! Just wait until I start scanning slides!!