On Mulberries

There's more than a dozen mulberry trees between S's place and NP's place, the walk that I was supposed to do every morning but have been taking every evening because I can't make myself get up on time. They're heavy and droopy with fruits, and a lot of the berries have ripened and fallen. Most of them are still raw though, and will ripen over the next few weeks. I'm looking forward to that.

Mulberries are called Kimbu in Nepali. We had two trees back when we lived in the long-green house. We'd climb up it and pick up kilos of berries every day for weeks, and somehow they'd come back. We'd eat it for breakfast and dinner, and there's be more to go. We'd give it out to family and friends, until they just about ran away when they saw us with mulberries, and we'd still have some. These were the good times.

Then we discovered the trees in BNKS. They were more of a bush there than trees, and they didn't get to ripen as much because you had to pick 'em up early enough or someone else would get there. Still, we had two great years of picking up the berries from the bush.

Mulberry leaves are the only diet for silkworms. What strange creatures, silkworms, they decided that among all the vegetation in the world with its unlimited offering, all they cared was a particular kind of berry's leaves. So lucky that the berry happened happened to be liked and loved by the humans, and that they could copulate under pressure while others were watching. Or else they'd go the panda way. Mulberry farming could be a great idea...the fruits for human consumption, cried powders, smoothies etc, and the leaves for the worms to turn to silk. Actually, I apologize for making mean comments about silkworms earlier...they eat water and mulberry leaves, and churn out amazing silk, stronger than steel by mass, an amazing material for all kinds of fabric. Certainly a lot more than I can accomplish.

I tasted a few from different trees on my way to PN's place yesterday. Still raw, still gritty, Going to wait for a few more days before picking them off. The strange amazing but a little confusing thing about this country is no one seems to care for these amazing balls of flavor hanging off trees out in the open...on public land. It's almost as if they don't know what they are, or if they're even edible. Don't care, it's great for me.

I'm excited.