Our boychick has taken to watching a “reality show” on Cartoon Network called Survive This. The general idea is that a group of teens has found themselves isolated in the wilderness following an accident, and that they have to both survive and get themselves rescued. The adult coordinating it is a survival instructor, who comments on the choices the kids make and whether or not they’re wise. They make a big deal out of saying that this isn’t a contest, there are no challenges or immunity or anything else, just the need to work as a team to make sure of basic necessities: shelter, food, water, etc.
So somewhere in the course of this, the kids are hunting for food in a swamp, and get themselves cattails. They’re amazingly useful plants: the fluff is excellent tinder and insulation, the mature stems are rigid enough to use to roof a sapling lean-to, the leaves can be woven into waterproof mats for sitting or sleeping, the pollen is both protein and starch-rich and the roots are very starchy and can be eaten like potatoes. Our son was enchanted by this idea. And this was something he could actually try, because we live by a marsh and there, across the road, are real, authentic cattails! He was determined to essay the experiment. I figured he’d babble about it for awhile, and then forget it. Nope. This was something real that he could try.
There’s only one problem; they’re growing in the marsh. No matter; he would go wade out and get some. (Before anyone panics, the marsh is two feet deep at its deepest point, and about 10 inches where the nearest cattails are. Every so often you see geese try to paddle and end up sort of walking.) Now this kid is usually Mr. Fastidious. If he gets a splash of water on a shirt, that shirt is no longer Fit For Wearing, and must be changed instantly. But still….cattails!
So today he got home, and said he was going after cattails. Right now. While I was still putting away groceries. He put his waterproof boots on, and he was ready. It was with some difficulty that I persuaded him to just look and see where the plants were, but wait for me to get out there before actually going after them. And sure enough, as soon as I was in sight off he went, down the bank off the path and into the marsh. His boots sufficed for his first step, but they only come up to mid-shin, and the water was just about knee deep on him. Didn’t phase him one bit. It came pouring in over the tops of the boots and he just kept going. He was an intrepid adventurer in pursuit of Scientific Knowledge! (Either that or he was 100% pure boy, glorying in the excuse to go into water and mud.) He actually managed to pull out a cattail stem, very proudly bringing it to me, certain that I would figure out how to prepare the thing.
So home we came, him squelching greenly at every step. He poured out his boots on the back step, rather surprised that the water wasn’t at all clear and at how much his boot had held in addition to his foot. Then he went inside, stripped, and took an immediate shower. Meanwhile, Cloud started pouncing at those amazing fluttery leaves, and I got online and tried to find out what to do with this six foot cat toy in my kitchen.
The conclusion I reached was that what he’d gotten was a part that wasn’t edible by late summer, and couldn’t be made so. But I tried anyway, cutting up the bottom part and boiling it for 45 minutes, until boychick was convinced that it just wasn’t going to soften enough to eat. We still have the head, though, and will see if it is as good for tinder as advertised, using an otherwise unusable charcoal grill as a firepit. We’ll even try sleeping in a tent in the back yard one night, while it’s still warm enough to be pleasant.
He isn’t discouraged. He wants to try to get some of the cattails at the edges of the fields, so that we can get leverage enough to get the root instead of just the bottom of the stem, and wait until spring for the shoots. He won’t forget, either.
And tomorrow I’ll see what I can do to rescue his boots.