We live in a really beautiful place. North Guilford, Connecticut still has woods and farms, and lots of things that grow wild. Today while biking to work I saw a deer with a full set of antlers.
Wild snapdragons make me very happy. When I was a child, my mother grew hybrid (cultivated? tame?) snapdragons, and I would pinch a flower with fingers on each side of the "hinge" and make the snapdragon open and close its mouth. You can do the same thing with the wild flowers, they're just littler.
But my favorite thing that grows wild is the berries. We are usually away when the wonderful wild blackberries ripen, but this year our timing has been perfect. I spend 45 minutes or an hour getting scratches all over my arms and legs to get a pint of delicious, seedy blackberries. My mother used to make jars and jars of blackberry jam; we three boys would be sheathed in lined bluejeans and rubberized raincoats to pick the berries, so we wouldn't get scratched or be exposed to poison ivy. As an adult I still love the berries but am willing to be more scratched up and not quite so boiled.
We also have wineberries growing wild. They're a slightly sticky, sweet berry with a mild flavor. The have the great virtues of growing in abundance, being far less prickly, and providing wonderful color contrast in our berry bowls!
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