Buttercups and Sweetpeas

Behind the building next to ours, near the edge of the parking lot, is a old rut created by a car that got a little too far over when it parked, leaving an ugly muddy tire tread print. The rut is fairly deep and narrow and well overgrown with grass, hard to see. Which is why the lawn mowers just run over the top of it, leaving the growth untouched.

Today when Sugar and I were doing a noontime walk, we discovered that the rut was a riot of beautiful yellow buttercups waving daintily in the breeze. I love buttercups! The first time I encountered a buttercup was when I was in kindergarten. Back in my time, kindergarten was mornings only. I had the whole afternoon to play, and often I spent the time with a fellow kindergartner who live at the end of our street, my friend Paul.

There was lots of yard space around our houses and we wandered about pretending to be explorers or swinging on the gym sets or just laying in the grass watching the clouds. One day we found the empty lot covered with lots of wildflowers, some of which were buttercups. Paul picked one and held it under my chin. I batted his hand away and he tilted his head, shutting one eye against the sun, and asked, "Don't you want to see if you like butter?" Huh? I already know! I like butter. But I asked him what he meant. "Well, when I hold the flower under your chin, if I can see yellow, you like butter. If I can't see yellow, then you don't like butter."

I'm not sure where he learned this, and even more, why he would want to know if I liked butter, but not wanting to disappoint my friend, and just a tad curious as to whether it worked or not, I let him hold the flower under my chin. "Look up so I can see," he instructed. "Yup! You like butter!" Ta-da! It worked. We sat there for the longest time surrounded by buttercups and sweetpeas of all different shades of purple. They nodded lazily while I checked my friend Paul to see if he liked butter. I looked first, then asked him. Nope. Confirmed. No yellow reflection appeared.

It was good enough for me, and I tried it on my siblings and other friends. It never failed to form some sort of camaraderie bond between the two participants of this acid test of butter fondness. Interesting that it doesn't seem to work with other yellow flowers like dandelions or black eyed susans! Tis the season for buttercups and sweetpeas. I couldn't help but wonder if holding a sweet pea under your chin would show a purple spot if you like peas! Apparently not.

Buttercups always bring me back to Esperance and lazy afternoons and kicking back to see who likes butter and who doesn't. Nice.