Recently, a friend told me she found an orange growing here in the Palouse region of northern Idaho.

Oranges …

in northern Idaho??

These weren’t naval oranges …

not Valencias …

not blood oranges …

They were something called “Osage oranges,” and they’re like nothing I’ve ever seen in Idaho or elsewhere.

Photo by H. Zell via Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Gale French via Wikimedia Commons

Have you seen one or know of them? The Osage orange is not really an orange (it’s a member of the mulberry family), but it was named so because its bumpy surface resembles a green, unripe orange, and the Osage Indians were known to prize the tree for making their bows, sometimes traveling hundreds of miles to find the wood. In the early 1800s, a good Osage bow was worth a horse and a blanket. It’s also called a hedge apple, horse apple, or monkey ball.

The fruit isn’t poisonous to people or animals, but it isn’t usually eaten because of its extremely tough texture and bitter milky sap. But it’s thought to have been a food staple of the ancestors of the modern-day tree sloth— giant ground sloths that roamed North America before the first human settlements—who helped spread its seeds across the continent. Modern-day squirrels are also known to feast on the seeds.

Photo by Stefan Laube via Wikimedia Commons

Photo by Mahieddine23 via Wikimedia Commons

In the early settlement days, it was planted in great numbers both as a field hedge (living fence) and a windbreak, then later was used as a source of durable posts for fencing. Before the invention of barbed wire in the 1880s, a good, aggressively pruned Osage orange hedge could be “horse high, bull strong, and hog tight.”

According to the U.S. Forest Service, “The Osage orange produces no sawtimber, pulpwood, or utility poles, but it has been planted in greater numbers than almost any other tree species in North America. It made agricultural settlement of the prairies possible (though not profitable), led directly to the invention of barbed wire, and then provided most of the posts for the wire that fenced the West.”

Photo by H. Zell via Wikimedia Commons

What do you think the village of Morton, Illinois, might be famous for?

Yes, this town of some 16,000 residents, a bedroom community of Peoria, was ranked one of the “10 best towns for families” in 2013 by Family Circle magazine.

And yes, it gained some infamy that same year when one of its neighborhoods blocked a Habitat for Humanity home from being built for a hearing-disabled veteran because they didn’t think the vinyl-sided home would fit into their brick-house community (after donations poured in as a result of the story, a brick house was built in its stead).

Is Morton, Illinois, the home of Morton Salt?

Morton University? No, those are both natives of Chicago, about 150 miles to the northeast.

Think fall … think round … think orange!

Morton is known as the Pumpkin Capital of the World.

Photo by Frenchtowner via Wikimedia Commons

Not only are several thousand acres around Morton growing pumpkins, but the Libby pumpkin cannery calls Morton home, canning up to 85 percent of the canned pumpkin in the U.S. So much pumpkin that the cannery runs day and night for about 13 weeks each year leading up to Thanksgiving. About 200 local farmers grow millions of pumpkins … not the kind you’d especially use for carving, but Dickinsons—tan-colored, oblong, thin-skinned pumpkins known for their rich flavor.

Dickenson pumpkins, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

And each September at the beginning of pumpkin-harvest season, Morton holds their annual Pumpkin Festival, a 4-day event that attracts 100,000 visitors to the tiny town for events like Pumpkin Bingo, a pumpkin-decorating contest, a parade with over 100 entries where participants and spectators alike are encouraged to wear orange, and as many pumpkin-laden treats that residents can dream up … and visitors can eat up. And, of course, a pumpkin-pie eating contest!

Photo by Mike DelGaudio via Wikimedia Commons

Next year, try growing flavorful Dickinson pumpkins (can you believe it’s an heirloom variety?) for your own pies—find heirloom seeds at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Today, let’s armchair travel to what just might be the wildest frontier town on the planet. But if you think we’re traveling to the Wild, Wild West, you might be surprised to learn we’re traveling eastward … to the Eastern Cape province of South Africa!

If, like me, you hadn’t heard of the Eastern Cape, it sits on the southeastern coast of South Africa, and is the birthplace of Nelson Mandela and many other prominent South African politicians. And its crowning jewel is an eccentric little frontier town called Bathurst.

Bathurst was settled in 1820 by lower-class British settlers looking to escape poverty in England, and sent to the area to act as a buffer between the Cape Colony and the African Xhosa people. One of those first settlers, Thomas Hartley, built a forge and became the town blacksmith. In 1832, he built an inn and pub next to his house. After his death, the pub became known as The Widow Hartley’s Inn. Later, it was renamed the Pig and Whistle, and it’s now one of the many National Monuments in Bathurst and the oldest continuously licensed pub in the country. A sign on the front door says, “Bathurst is a drinking village with a farming problem.”

Travelers also come for the art the town is famous for. Known as a community of artists and musicians, you’ll find eccentric shops and galleries, yard art like a vintage toilet sporting a pair of black stilettos, and an African thatched hut called the Dancing Donkey that sports African arts and crafts as well as natural organic products. Many of the original settler houses and other buildings in town have been preserved, giving the feel of an English village of the early 19th Century.

On down the road, you’ll find the kitschy Bathurst Agricultural Museum, where you can see an ostrich incubator, ox wagon, old farming equipment, and even a steam engine.

Photo, Bathurst Agricultural Museum

But the kitschy-est venue in town may be the world’s largest pineapple! The three-story-tall fiberglass pineapple (the main agricultural crop of the region) houses a pineapple museum and is surrounded by pineapple fields. While there, you can take a tractor tour of the farm and taste the local pineapples.

Photo by NJR ZA via Wikimedia Commons

In the village, you’ll also find the 1832 Wesleyan Church and the oldest (1834) unaltered Anglican church in South Africa, St John’s, as well as the Bathurst Nursery and Tea Garden. On a nearby hill sits The Toposcope monument, built in 1859 with rocks from the original dwellings, marking the hilltop survey point for the early settlers with a vast view of the surrounding countryside.

Just a short drive away, you’ll find the Waters Meeting Nature Reserve, offering hiking and canoeing, and the beautiful Sunshine Coast, with its variety of swimming and surfing beaches.