Nootka Rose

If you ask Henry what sound a sheep makes, he says "Ba, bababa, BAH BAH BAH!"  If you ask him what sound a cow makes he says "mew."  If he sees a raspberry bush, even without any berries on it, he points to it and shouts "Dada!"  We took him to the state fair and he loved the pigs, the pygmy goats and the John Deer tractors best.  When he wants to throw a ball or a clementine he winds up like Felix Hernandez and whips it.  He had his first haircut and he didn't cry.  He's been camping three times, nine total nights.  He barks at dogs.  He's in the ninety-fifth percentile for head-size.  He will not wear socks.  He figured out how to spill a sippy cup, and he does it on purpose and laughs.  He feeds his dog Cheerios.  He eats with his own fork and spoon and he can open the freezer door.  He prefers playing in the sprinkler to going in the pool, prefers splashing in the lake to the sprinkler, but likes to be in the river best of all.  He gives us kisses when we tell him goodnight, and he warns us when something is "hot".

So what if he doesn't walk yet?  Everybody walks.

The other night we went foraging for wild rose hips.

Henry helped pick the fruits.  I've read that the rose hips are best after the first frost, but the not-quite ripe ones were the easiest to work with, and the least likely to be full of larva.

He can also say "flower".

Each one contains at least one-hundred million seeds.  We scraped those out with a small knife.  The raw fruits are chewy and tangy.  They're not too good.

I made four jars of jam from the hips, two with blackberries we picked (4 cups rose hips, 1 cup blackberries, 2 cups sugar) and two with rhubarb from the garden (4 cups rhubarb, 1 cup rose hips, 2 cups suger).  The one we've tried so far is delicious.  How many one-year olds eat rose hips?  I bet he walks before most babies try their first rose hip, that's for sure.

Nootka Rose

Rosa nutkana

Family rosaceae 

This wild rose grows up and down the West coast, and is one of two native roses to the Puget Sound.  (The other one's the bald-hip rose.) It's long been in use as a medicinal tea by native people, but the hips were only eaten as an emergency food.  Some babies were bathed in water boiled with nootka leaves to promote strength.  During World War II, when the Nazis successfully prevented most tropical fruit from importation into Britain, The Times encouraged people to gather wild rose hips and printed instructions for creating a vitamin C supplement.

--Tim 9/7/11