Busting open Texas Mountain Laurel pods to collect their red beans is a very important task. Lucas spent an hour with his little hammer, pounding away at the pod shells and sorting the various beans into his overall pockets. Each time he opened a new one he'd exclaim, "Wow!" or "Red berry!" He was excited every single time. :)
1 comment:
Fun! I used to do the same thing with the same beans, although I was considerably older than Lucas. As kids we'd rub them on the concrete and they'd get hot enough to give first-degree burns to your unsuspecting 'friends'. So of course we called them "Hot Beans".
Just in case you don't know, these seeds come from the Mescalbean plant (AKA Texas Mountain Laurel). All parts of the plant, including the seeds, are rather poisonous. The red seed coating USUALLY will allow swallowed seeds to pass without incident, but I wouldn't try it myself. Livestock that eat the leaves often become ill. Like I said, just in case.
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