A few days ago I was out scouting for locations for an upcoming film. I was hot on the trail of an old wooden barn that was supposedly all Grapes of Wrath style. Pretty much in the middle of nowhere, I was hauling ass down a dirt road when something caught my attention.
Off to the side, just off the shoulder, there was an old one-eyed lady. She was intently studying a large bush. It was maybe ten feet tall and spanned a distance of several car lengths. The long branches spilled out in front of it, overlapping, giving it an almost waterfall appearance.
The lady, white haired and hunched, poked at it with a small wooden cane. I didn’t want to disturb her, so I kept going, but made a mental note of the location so that I could return after my little photo shoot.
The “barn” turned out to be an old house that had half caved in and was a total piece of crap and waste of my time, but other than that…
I returned to the weird bush, minus the odd old lady, and hopped out of my car. It was covered in what looked to be fairly large berries, but I couldn’t quite place them. So I ate one (yes, yes I’m going to die. Whatever).
To my delight, they were wild plums. Delicious, delicious wild plums. They were incredibly juicy and a little tart, with a really nice sweet finish. The bush looked like it had been worked over fairly well, so there weren’t that many ripe little guys left, but I chowed down on all of them I could reach. Mmmmm…wild plums.
I hear they make great preserves and even wine, but for the time being it was just cool to stumble across a patch for some super fresh Spring snacking.
Back on a film note, Boss man Sally has recently left me all by myself in Austin, so that he could run off to play with the Coen brothers on a film they’re doing out in Marfa, TX. It’s beautiful country out there, so even though I think he’s a douche for getting to work on two great movies practically at the same time, I thought I would share this landscape shot that he took.
It’s pretty cool. Thanks Sally.
-L. Pants
