Questions of life and wild berries du jour

What's important? Where do you want your life to go? What do you do for fun?

Apparently I don't have the answers to the two latter questions, because there's SO MUCH that I like to do and want to do.

In some bits of free time, I have begun researching my friends' genealogy. Because I'm crazy, I guess. But I do like giving others a boost into one of my obsessions.

Speaking of obsessions, I ate five grapes earlier on a walk, and I'm quite happy about it. But the vine right next to it has seemingly identical fruits, but is a totally different vine. I know the vine I ate from is a wild grape and these are my first wild grapes. By the way: Yum. Seedy but yum!

Right next to (and probably intertwined with) this particular grape is a greenbriar or catbriar that ALSO has little grapelike fruits. The thing you notice most about greenbriar is that it is so so so thorny. Even the folks giving it a common name call it prickly catbriar, because telling you it is thorny once is not enough.

So the fruits of Smilax hispida ("bristly vine") are beautiful, and very similar to grapes in size, at least at this location. I read that the early spring shoots and leaves are the really edible parts, and the berries have thick skins and last through the winter. I did find one place that mentioned making jellies with them. Most talk about the early shoots.

This photo is of greenbriar, but the leaves vary by genus, and the ones I see on my walk don't look heart-shaped like that, although they all have palmate veining.

So now you know. They apparently like very similar locations to grapes.