Katniss Everdeen, you ain't got nothing on me!

Do you remember sitting on your parent's knee and listening to the stories of their childhood?  This weekend, instead of being the child listening, I was the parent telling.  My kids were held captive in the car for three hours as we drove up to visit the inlaws, and I started telling them about my 'mis'adventures as a child.  They loved hearing about me as a dumb kid and encouraged me (the dumb adult) to record them on my blog.  I thought it was a great idea!! 

I'll break you in slowly so I'll tell you my bow and arrow story.   I spent about 6 years living up in Northern BC in a town called Stewart--"two miles from the Alaskan panhandle" we used to tell people (as if that helped them locate it any easier) where I was surrounded by breathtaking wilderness--huge mountains with permafrost, glaciers, snow from October to late May, and forest.  Lots and lots of forest.  In fact, one was right across my street.  And behind my school.  And on the side of my school.  And down the road from my friend's house.  You get the idea.

I was kind of an odd child and so sometimes I would go into the forest and sit on a big log and freak myself out that there was a bear coming upon me. Or other times I'd imagine that there were ginormous spiders free falling from the trees to come and attack me.  And other times, I'd plot a war.  One to be fought with bow and arrows.  Originally I had no one to fight a war with so I forced myself to make friends so that I could use them as enemies.  It wasn't long before some social outcasts fell prey to my charms and became my warring buddies.  Before long we were knee deep in planning.   The first thing we needed was ammunition.  Bows would be easy enough....just rip a couple of twigs off the trees, peel the bark off and then tie a string to it.  Weren't we brillliant?  We soon discovered one flaw with our bows though....because they were green, as soon as we pulled the string taut they would fold in on themselves and fracture.  If you've ever had a broken bone called a 'greenstick fracture' this is where the term originated from.  Little bit of science thrown in there for your educational enjoyment.  No thanks necessary.

Anyway, before we discovered the flaw with our bows and abandoned the idea of a war, we had focused our energies on making arrows.  What was better than these weeds?  They are called purple loosestrife and they would make the best arrows ever!!  They were long, had a good thick stalk like an arrow shaft, and came to a point!  Perfect!!

We would disappear into the forest for hours and fill garbage bags full of these weeds.  When we got enough we sat down and pulled all the leaves off of them.  Kind of like shucking corn.  After being engaged for hours in this activity we either were too tired to fight our war or else we'd get called into the house for supper so the stripped weeds would go back into the garbage bag to await our 'warring' in the morning.

Only, you know what happens when you take a plant out of the ground and leave it for hours.  It wilts.

Imagine our disappointment when we opened the bag only to find a bunch of floppy, flimsy arrows! What a bummer.  No worries, we'll just start over--

Pick.

Shuck.

Get called in for dinner.

Put back in bag.

Next morning: Floppy arrows!

Pick.

Shuck.

Repeat.

And repeat.

And repeat.  UGH!!  We were soooo clueless!!

When I finally wised up, I called a truce with my frenemies and returned to my own forest where I plucked my own weeds, shucked them immediately and loaded my greenstick bow ....and successfully picked off every forest zombie coming to eat my brains, every silverback grizzly that wandered into my space, and all the ninja spiders that wanted to spin me like a fly into their communal web.

Yep, I was the queen of the forest.   Ruler of the trees!   Archer extrodinaire!

Eat your heart out Katniss Everdeen....

You may call me Loosestrife  Evergreen.