“Come with me into the woods where spring is advancing, as it does, no matter what, not being singular or particular, but one of the forever gifts, and certainly visible.” – Mary Oliver

I love to watch the awakening that is spring. It’s as if one day the natural world is still sleeping, painted brown and still in the depths of winter, and the next, bright colors begin to populate the landscape and new life begins to burst forth.

First come the daffodils with their lush green stems and brilliant yellow flowers. It seems to me that they often arrive a bit too early, but who am I to question nature’s timing. They are always so prolific around old home sites, and I often find myself imagining what it must have looked like once upon a time.

This holds true for the area just inside of the gate to our family tree farm. The yellow beauties decorate the hillside at the entrance and, along with a couple of crepe myrtles and the remains of a huge pecan that has long since fallen, they tell a small part of the story of the home that once stood there.

I read that under the proper conditions, a field of daffodils can bloom for many decades—up to fifty according to many sources. This means it is quite possible that several of the groups of flowers at the farm were around before I was born.

However, these yellow flowers are far more than the eye candy of spring. According to a 2019 article on www.gov.uk entitled “Welsh-grown daffodils help tackle Alzheimer’s,” daffodils “contain galantamine—a compound known to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s symptoms.” Isn’t nature amazing?

Following quickly on the heels of the daffodils comes my favorite marker of spring, the redbud tree. Specifically, the variety here in our part of the world is the Eastern redbud (Cercis canadensis for the serious tree lovers).

As I travel the roads of Mississippi for work, I always marvel at the beauty of the tree’s pinkish purple blossoms. It is interesting to watch their “budding” development in the different regions that I travel, seeing them, first, south of Interstate 20 and, later, watching as their blooms move north over the following days and weeks.

For me, those blooms signal another of my favorite spring arrivals—turkey season. While driving south to Wiggins last week I reached out to friend and foraging expert Joseph Hosey to learn more about the redbud, my favorite harbinger of the coming season.

Hosey, who hails from Jones County, is a forester by trade and can be found on social media as the Free State Forager (Instagram @freestateforager). He is a wealth of knowledge for all things foraging and, since he also shares my love of turkey hunting, I knew we would have much to talk about.

According to Hosey, you can use both the buds and the flowers of the redbud tree, and while he does use both, he prefers the flavor profile of the developed bloom. “You can use them at either stage and you can eat them raw on top of salads or in smoothies,” he said, adding, “they are pretty high in vitamin C and a few different antioxidants.”

One of his favorite uses of the blooms is to make redbud tea.

“It produces a nice magenta color and you get a lot more flavor out of the blooms that have started to open,” said Hosey.

His basic recipe includes adding around a cup of redbud blooms to roughly four cups of water. Typically with his flower teas, he likes to bring the water to a boil, turn off the heat, add the flowers, put a lid on the pot, and let the tea steep for ten to fifteen minutes. A quick Google search while writing this yielded very similar recipes for redbud tea and also revealed that jellies and syrups made with the flower are also quite popular.

Joseph also gave me another pearl to try with the tea—local honey. “I don’t always use a sweetener in teas, but when I do I have found that honey pairs well with the flower teas I make. The honey seems to enhance the flavor of the redbud,” he explained.

Hosey is a wealth of information when it comes to using (and consuming) the bounty that surrounds us in nature. I interviewed him several years ago for one of my first Outdoors columns, and we’ve been trying to get together for a turkey hunt and, perhaps, a foraging lesson or two since then.

I hope to make that a reality this year. Until next time, here’s to noticing (and sometimes eating) the beauty that surrounds us this spring, and here’s to seeing you out there in our great outdoors.

Email outdoors columnist Brad Dye at braddye@comcast.net.