My Dandelion Memories ~ by Gabby Angel

As very young girls Autumn and I would pick dandelions to be used in making wine. As we were young, it was just fun because we were helping and we did love to help!  We learned you picked the dandelions in late morning to early afternoon when the flowers would be fully opened. *No, I won’t be boring and tell the whole process, you all can look it up if you feel compelled to get the recipe! 😉 Autumn and I watched all the time, love and patience put into making this wine and how it all was finally put into bottles to set for months.

I do need to say, while in that crock while brewing those dandelion heads and orange slices looked harmless dancing about together!  What is truly the key to how stong the wine gets is “the longer it sits, the stronger it gets”, well here I am  rhyming without intent!  Watching the grownups drinking this (not to excess) and enoying it just seemed so elegant in those pretty wine glasses.

When you are a young child, you listen when they say “this drink is not for children”. Well, as you get a bit older and hit about 15 years old, you just get more curious…At least that was the case for Autumn and me. Those bottles on the shelf seemed to be calling our names! So one fine Friday night, after everyone else was off to bed while Autumn and I were still awake chatting and listening to our music. When we clearly heard those wine bottles calling…”Gabby, Autumn come have a taste!” We got out those pretty wineglasses and felt ever so grown up and adult, filling those glasses full. I will confess I was pouring for us, Autumn was being far too giggly and dancing around over the new experience and adventure we were embarking on. We proceeded to down a few glasses, still chatting, laughing (everything seemes so funny!) and dancing …Just having a good old time of it. Before long, we were both feeling a bit tipsy, of course getting louder and Autumn was posing with her wineglass saying, “I look at least 18 now, don’t I?” Which cracked me up, giggling so hard and loud as guess who cranked up the music? 😉 Naturally it woke up our parents after awhile…We were being so quiet and careful just how did it happen that our Dad suddenly appeared? Much to our surprise Dad was kind of funny and said “Enough girls, you aren’t in trouble now but you will be in the morning” as he herded us off our beds.

. Leave it to bold Autumn, after Dad closed our door to say giggly and proudly…”I just knew it, see Gabs we aren’t even in trouble!” What a true joke that turned out to be, for real. Saturday morning rolled around and Dad rolled in waking us both up Very Loudly, singing a tune and saying “Come on girls, let’s rise and shine!” We both were awake by then, feeling lousy, headaches and just plain miserable.

Whining (No pun intended) ;), both of us carried on to Dad to let us sleep, we feel sick! “Of course you do, this is your lesson”, said Dad…”You found your own trouble, your punishment is one you brought on yourselves and now time to get around and get to your Saturday morning chores”. Dad was a wise one all right…Mom and him knew we wouldn’t need grounded or in any big trouble. Instead we got to haul those hangovers along with us as we did our chores! Yuck, it was a miserable day to say the least and these type of lessons learned sure do stay with you, trust me! 😉 🙂

Advertisement