Cucawhats?

I think I've mentioned this before, but we have kickass neighbors.  They're an older couple who have lived in their house for upwards of 30 or 40 years.  Apparently the family that owned the house before they did had a son who participated in boyscouts.  For one of his merit badges he planted and cultivated a blueberry bush, and that blueberry bush is now approximately 70 years old.  This is the monster:

The bush, the plant, the legend.

Right?  Pretty insane.  That's not a shed in the background.  It's a mansion.  No, okay, it's a shed.  But either way, as far as blueberries go, we're packin heat.

Anyway, this post is not so much about the berry bush.  In fact, far stranger things are on the horizon.  Whilst harvesting the other day, I noticed an unusual vine using the bush its personal trellis.  The leaves resembled that of a grapevine, but had flowers that looked tiny cucumber flowers, and what seemed to be teeeeeeeeeny tiny watermelons sprouting all willy nilly in every direction.  WHAT THE DEUCE?!

See?

I went inside, cut one of the fruits open, and it smelled of cucumbery goodness.  I wanted to eat one, but Hubs was all "I dunno, that could be poisonous" and my mom was in my head screaming "You could die!!!" so instead I went to the internet.

I googled (I shit you not) the following things:

• Fake cucumbers
• Poisonous cucumbers
• Cucumber look-a-like
• Mini cucumber
• Cucumber vine

Well I finally hit on something.  Apparently there are several types of tiny cucumbers.  Or maybe there aren't many types, but just many names.  Or there are many names for each of the many types of tiny cucumbers.  I think that's it.  It's full government is Melothria Scabra, and some of its aliases include Cucamelons, Mexican Sour Gherkins, Mouse Melons, Sanditas (my favorite, it means little watermelon in Spanish), and so on.  It tastes like a cucumber that has had lemon juice spritzed on it, but most importantly, it's INCREDIBLY CUTE AND NOT POISONOUS.  

(I think I've maxed out my caps usage for one post.)

Little cuke cut open.

The weest of wee flowers, soon to produce another sandita!

Can you imagine the adorable pickles these will make?

Anyway, I thought I'd share this marvel of nature.  Keep your eyes peeled, you never know what you might stumble across!  We also later found several blackberry bushes and muscadine grapevines in their backyard too.  An orchard they didn't even intend, how wild is that?  (Literally...muahahah)

Also always be very certain of what you're putting into your body.  One of the only reason I trusted my internet judgement on this was because there are apparently no poisonous fake cucumber look a likes out there, so I felt pretty safe.  

Happy hunting!