California Coffeeberry

   No, it’s not coffee at all. It was just named that due to its resemblance. It is a wild shrub in California, and has an attractive foliage all year long, and at times has these very attractive berries that are food for much wildlife. We have many of these plants on our property, they are one of the plants I resist removing or cutting.

   This is not a plant to eat… the berries will cause intestinal problems that can only be resolved by sitting on the toilet for many, many, many hours…. and you might wind up in the hospital… so don’t eat these!

 

 

   You can click the image to see it much larger.

   This is the ‘Rhamnus californica’  subsp. occidentalis   species

~David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Paul Kantner~
‘Wooden Ships’

If you smile at me, I will understand
‘Cause that is something everybody everywhere does
in the same language.

I can see by your coat, my friend,
you’re from the other side,
There’s just one thing I got to know,
Can you tell me please, who won?

Say, can I have some of your purple berries?

 Yes, I’ve been eating them for six or seven weeks now,
haven’t got sick once.

Probably keep us both alive.

Wooden ships on the water, very free and easy,
Easy, you know the way it’s supposed to be,
Silver people on the shoreline, let us be,
Talkin’ ’bout very free and easy…
Horror grips us as we watch you die,
All we can do is echo your anguished cries,
Stare as all human feelings die,
We are leaving - you don’t need us.

Go, take your sister then, by the hand,
lead her away from this foreign land,
Far away, where we might laugh again,
We are leaving - you don’t need us.

And it’s a fair wind, blowin’ warm,
Out of the south over my shoulder,
Guess I’ll set a course and go…

 

 

 

 

The Harbor in San Diego California hosts a meeting of the big masted sail ships every year. A fellow from there took video of some of the ships, and put it on YouTube with the song ‘Wooden Ships’ by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  The song is great, the video is pretty well done, and the ships filmed are impressive…. if you ever get a chance to go to San Diego, do go. It is a fun town, and the weather can be counted on to be great. The harbor is fine, the people seem to enjoy to party… it’s a different kind of town… I’ve enjoyed it any time I’ve been there.