Ode To The Osage Orange

     There's monkey brains everywhere.  They're lining the farm field.  They're smashed across the road.  They've seemingly found themselves in every nook and cranny they could find available.  And, before you start believing that we're harboring some genetically modified alien monkeys with green brains up here, rest assured that Pennsylvania Dutch Country is safe.

     They're actually the fruit of the Osage Orange, nicknamed Monkey Brains by the locals due to their brainy appearance.  

     Osage Orange dates back to the days before barbed wire when fencing an area used a lot more help from Mother Nature and a lot less assistance from modern machinery.  Fence rows were made from a variety of things back then: rocks, logs, waddle and daub, and a farmer's favorite, a living fence line.  By planting living fence lines, the plants would grow so incredibly wild and tight-packed that not even a hog could break through them.  Unfortunately for farmers, they would still have needed some maintenance on these fences if animals were around, as the BBC's Edwardian Farm demonstrates in their own hedgerow:

     Otherwise, it was a fairly good plan, and that's where the Osage Orange comes in.  

     A tree with inedible fruit shouldn't be the first thought for a farmstead, unless, it could be made useful in other ways.  An Osage Orange tree growing on its own will form a beautiful round crown; however, in a close-packed hedge row, it will form an impenetrable barrier with thorns so large that they would sometimes injure livestock.  Farmers, in both America and Europe, also found their wood useful for crafting with, including for bows, wagon tongues and wheels, and even fence posts and railroad ties.

     Although thousands of miles of Osage Orange fence lines were planted throughout America, there remains only smatterings in our area today.  Fortunately, there's one along the edge of the road right near our place, and I happily gathered some of the monkey brains.  Studded with cloves and decorated with a ribbon and some cinnamon sticks the Osage Orange fruit  makes a wonderful Christmas decoration that those of Pennsylvania German descendant have been using for some time.  We'll still be waiting a little longer before we put any Christmas decorations out around here though as it's not even Thanksgiving yet!  (Fall is also my favorite season of the year after all, so I don't mind an extended period of fall decor.)  

     What natural decorations do you like to use at Christmas?