I wrote about the first day of our Thanksgiving, but need to finish the next few days! We got to stay in CA for the weekend. We loved the quite streets on Thanksgiving and our dinner will be one never to be forgotten! Thanks to the fun atmosphere, great company, and fun milk shakes that topped off the way fun day!The next day we decided to go see the Redwoods! I have long wanted to go! So we did! It was a toss up to decide between the Redwoods and Yosemite. We will have to go back soon because we didn't make Yosemite!
It took us the better part of a day to drive up there... only because we had fun stops along the way including Hunting Mistletoe! For several years now, I have watched as we drove through the country around this time for Mistletoe which I understood grows in the tops of trees. We were one our way North through CA and S said, what is that growing in the tops of the trees? EEEkkk! I bet it's Mistletoe! It was! I had read about harvesting mistletoe and that it was easiest with a shotgun. I started saying that we needed to find a gun shop and buy a shotgun so we could harvest some! The boys were all over that! :) They couldn't believe they were hearing that from me! It wasn't too far before we found a tree that had tons of it hanging not far above a fence that we thought we could climb up and reach at least pulling some down. After all we had B and J with us! Two tall boys! They might could just reach this! Yep. We decided to stuff all our bags into the car, and see if we could fill the "green tomato" (a canvas bag we affectionately call the green tomato) full of as much as we could get - what a fun Christmas gift this would be! J was up in the tree, and we were loading it as quickly as we could - a little leary that we knew we were stealing this right out of this tree not far from a farm house, in the middle of this beautiful wine country! Then a pickup truck pulled up behind us. Oops. We were sure we were in trouble - not sure for what or what they would do, but we were worried. The gentleman got out and proceeded to tell us about that there mistletoe we were "stealing" out of that tree! He informed us that it is very poisonous and that we should not be touching it green! He said that it had killed his cattle and that it was very poisonous! After a talking, we were grateful he would care, and we quit our anxious harvest, and stuffed in what we had and left carefully to find a place to wash in the very next town. He said that cows really like it - it must taste good, but it kills them quick! We were careful to not leave any on the ground where the lamas in the field could reach. We hope we didn't do any harm. We found a place to wash quickly and were careful to not allow the little ones to touch it at
all!
It wasn't long before we came to a place advertising a tree to drive through! Wow! That is all I can say! It was amazing and beautiful! We enjoyed a hike and picnic there among those giants!
