My mother's home stands in a land of milkweed silk, Burns Township MI, Mile 12524.

My mother introduced me to the milkweed on one of our nature walks along our dirt road. As I guess as an eight year old girl, her family had gathered milkweed silk for the war effort, the silk bouyant in navy lifepreservers. I have heard great stories of Coast Guard and Navy men carried for hours upon the waves by their flotation devices and I like to think that my mom had gathered all that milkweed silk. As for me, I made imaginary ships out of the stiff dry hulls and painted with the white latex blood that gushed from cracks. I am thinking of a crew of volunteers near Lexington Michigan probably still filling baskets with wine grapes at Blue Water Wineries. I plucked a few walnuts of bare trees today, a handful of the husky green globes hanging from the skinny branches. Come to think, I once painted with the brown stain from these juicy husks. I never made ink of it although that would work. Found plenty of oak galls, but never ground them into ink.