SIMPLE PLEASURES

 I find milkweed endlessly fascinating.  From blooms through floating seeds, there is always something to enjoy. 

When milkweed flowers, butterflies and bees—and my camera—love it.  Monarch butterflies in particular are attracted to it.  I first became aware of the pink, clustered blooms when my mother used to include them in wildflower arrangements that she entered for judging in the county fair.  Memories of Mom are always nearby when the milkweed blooms. 

My father hated milkweed, especially in the fall.  “Don’t DO that!” he would yell when I waved the dried seedpods around so I could watch the fuzz—and seeds—float away in the sunshine.  “STOP THAT!” he would exclaim when he came upon my sister and I trying to see who could create the greater blizzard of fluff. The coming of fall brought trouble to Dad’s garden of Eden. 

You see, milkweed is an extremely invasive weed.  It takes over any piece of soil it can latch on to, including, back then, Dad’s garden. So Marilyn and I caused him great consternation when we got going with the milkweed frenzy. He always threatened to make us pull it all out when it came up the next spring, but somehow that never happened… 

In the cool fall mornings as I waited for the school bus, I braved getting my good clothes dirty as I scoured the ditches for milkweed pods to empty all over the road.  When a car came by, the fluff would fly.  It was such a simple pleasure!  I just hoped Dad wasn’t watching. 

When I had children of my own, I continued the tradition by teaching  them the joy of setting milkweed free too.  As tiny tots they chased the fluff like bubbles; as the girls grew they quickly developed their own techniques for strewing the most milkweed in the shortest span of time.  Grandpa didn’t have the heart to yell at them—the girls were just too near to his heart. 

To this day, my sister and I still love to fly milkweed.  When our lives happen to intersect in the fall, we go play in the fields, trying to see who can make the most frenzied blizzard.  One year, when Mare didn’t make it home to play at my house, she commemorated the season at her own by filling the back of a girlfriend’s little pickup truck with milkweed pods.  When her friend drove off, unaware of the cargo she carried, my sister won the prize for the biggest snowstorm! 

So now, I eagerly watch the fields in the fall for the first signs that the milkweed is getting ready to take off.  First the pods split open, exposing white stringy stuff that looks like matted chick feathers.  As the sunshine dries and the breeze teases the edges loose, soon the neatly ordered rows of seeds begin to stretch their wings.  First one, then two, then a fleet of seed-carrying bits of fluff set sail; their friends left behind eagerly line up for their own voyages. 

As yet another generation of milkweed takes to the air—and while I help it on its way, in my mind I hear my father saying, “Don’t DO that! You’ll be sorry next spring!”  Memories of Dad are always nearby when the milkweed flies.   

If you would like to know more about the kind of milkweed that grows in my part of the world, you can go to the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Milkweed