Mistletoe Hunting

Yesterday afternoon after church, I went over to my friend Patty’s farm for a visit. After coffee and watching a bit of the football game together, I rose to leave. “Do you want some mistletoe?” she asked.

“You have some?” I was delighted. I love mistletoe, but other than the fake stuff, I’ve only seen the living mistletoe plant once or twice.

“Yes,” she said. “It grows all over our oak trees. Come on.”

Her husband, Ron was in the doorway. He grabbed his riffle and after a brief discussion about ammunition and passing some boxes back and forth with Patty, we put on our coats and trooped out onto the muddy farm road. I had no idea why Ron had the riffle. I thought he was going deer hunting.

We walked down their farm road and stopped under a huge old oak tree next to the new workshop building they’d just put up. There was a mature holly bush near the base of the oak, covered with red berries, as if to underscore that it was the Christmas season and here we were picking mistletoe. I looked around, but didn’t see anything that looked like the little plastic mistletoe my mom hung near the front door. “Where is it?” I asked.

Ron pointed up into the oak. “There.”

High up in the boughs of the old oak tree was what I at first took to be a cluster of leaves. Then I realized it was mistletoe! It looked at first like leaves that hadn’t fallen to the ground, or perhaps an odd kind of Spanish moss, the kind I’ve seen growing off the oaks in Louisiana.

Ron carefully took aim with his riffle and fired. Mistletoe boughs rained down on us.

Patty scooped them up, pushed them into a zip lock bag, and I was on my way home.

I’ve never hunted wild mistletoe before!

Thanks guys…that was quite the adventure. And Ron is quite the shot…