Foraged:

I have been passing the same wild grape vine on my regular running route for years. Up here in the hills there isn't much passing that grape vine besides me other than a few cars and various wild animals. Every year around this time the vine is laden with beautiful green grapes - beautiful, but hard as little green rocks and terribly sour. It is one of my favorite parts of the route because that grape vine just doesn't seem to belong there and it piques my imagination. How did it get there? Did somebody plant it there? Why would someone plant a random grape vine along the side of a windy country road far from any houses or other form of civilization other the a barbed wire fence? I wonder if the wild animals wait for the grapes to get ripe, if they look forward to that day when they turn from sour pellets to juicy sweet grapes. Maybe that is why I have never seen the vine bearing ripe fruit - one day it is covered in unripe grapes, the next time I see it the grapes are gone because the animals have harvested the grapes between one jog and the next.

Today, though, as I passed the vine, the grapes looked a little more plump than usual, and I bravely picked one off as I jogged past and popped it into my mouth. Now, I haven't been able to eat fruit for over a year due to some health issues, so I might be a little bit skewed in my perception of this grape, but to me it tasted like the best thing EVER grown on the side of the road in the entire world. I kept jogging along enjoying my grape, thinking that today must be the day the bunnies and birds and wild boar and deer would discover that their grape crop was ready to be harvested. Then I remembered that the bunnies and birds and deer and wild boar have been stealing the melons and corn and sunflowers and lettuce and kale and tomatoes from our garden. And I stopped jogging, turned around, and picked those grapes FOR MYSELF. And yes, I jogged home carrying them in my hands, leaving a little trail of evidence behind me.