If They Look Like Peas . . .



Admit it, they would fool anyone!

But they look like peas!
They open, like peas.
And they have little pea-type things in them.
And if they look like peas, and open like peas and have little pea things in them, they must be peas.
I love peas.
I'm eating them . . .

The Anderson family lived in a geat barn of a house at the very top of the hill in Milk River. It was my favourite place to visit. And to play.

Not only did my best friend, Kathy, live there, but there were lots of other kids to play with (12 in all) and they had this amazing house with an infinite number of rooms and hallways and balconies and little, hidden cupboards. We could play pretend for an entire day and never run out of spaces or scenarios.
And to make things even better, across the road on the north, was farmland. With barley crops taller than we were, ripening in the sun.
I should mention here that Milk River produced three Barley Kings. An award given for producing the best that the barley world had to offer.
To me, barley simply made an excellent hiding place.
And along the road, on the East, screening the Ellert farm from the Anderson's back yard, was a high hedge of caragana.
That, in late summer, was hung with thousands of . . . peas.

We had been playing hard most of the day and it was nearly time to go home for supper.
We were hungry.
Kathy did the smart thing. She ran to her house to find food.
Her sister, Laurie and I decided to forage for ourselves.
After all, there were all of these peas that no one else was picking.
We simply couldn't let them go to waste.
Have I mentioned that I love peas?
I grabbed a big one and opened it.
Huh. Well, they weren't quite the right colour, but they were approximately the right shape and size.
I ate one.
Yuck. Not great. Well, the next one will be better.
Okay, it wasn't.
Maybe the next one.
Okay, all of those were pretty much awful.
The next pod will be sweet and tasty.
Nope.
Well, maybe the next one.
And so it went.
I can't tell you how many of the awful things Laurie and I ate. It must have been quite a few. Because we certainly got sick.
I don't remember much about that part.
Mostly because I was unconscious at the time.
Who knew that peas could do that?
But I learned my lesson.
Never again would I snack on peas that grew, temptingly, on trees.
From then on, I stuck to things like . . . buffalo beans. Adult aspirin. Dust bunnies.
Oh the gastronomic adventures!
How did my Mom survive?
How did I survive?!