Benito Trevino Interview, Part 2 of 2

(misc.) DT: Well, we've talked some about your visitors who have come to appreciate what they might have lost back home. I am curious what you fear losing in your area. The things that need to be conserved, what sort of challenges do you see there?

BT: You know, we have several, several plants that are rare and that is the, the classification that they're classified is rare which is nothing to worry about. It just means, you know, we don't find them very frequently. And then there are those that are threatened which is a little bit more severe and then those are the ones that are the endangered list.

And I'm really worried even from the rare ones because, because of the destruction of habitat. There is so much destruction of habitat. The few endangered plants that we have are not being, you know, there's no recovery program that I know of to ensure that, you know, years from now, we can move them down to the threatened list, remove them from the endangered list and then hopefully many more years they could be even listed as rare and, you know, been give a lower category.

So I am really concerned about those species because I feel that when we should act is when they're rare or threatened, not like on some of these species they're already listed as endangered and we haven't acted yet.

You know, there is a chance that we could have I know one, one particular plant, the Ashy Dogweed which exc...there's a population of about maybe 300 or so right at the Zapata, Starr County area, the county line and its a nice viable population but I'm concerned that the genetics of that population are--they're probably pretty much similar in every, every plant because its probably they're related.

It's probably one little population and they're all members of the same group. And some people don't worry because they say, oh, you know, there's plenty there. There's still 300 left there.

Well what happens if a insect is introduced into this country through fruits or whatever and it happens to enjoy Ashy Dogweed and it wipes out that population. Then what? And even if we had a cash of seed from that population it would be susceptible to that insect just like that population was.

So I would like to see more dedication done to the germination of, not just that one population but, seeds from the few populations that we have so that we have genetic, a larger, a broader genetic base, rather than just one population.

Then there's several the ah, the a Walkers Manioc, another endangered plant that we have is treated the same way oh, there is plenty of them. But I'm concerned that by the time we decide to act, the seeds would not be there. A major freeze could come through, a major drought and just wipe out the whole population. So those, those are some of my concerns.

Some of the plants that I am able to work with are those that are rare like the Texas Baby Bonnet. I can germinate that and I, I normally germinate at least 1,000 a year. So by what I do alone I, I sell to nurseries and they sell to other people and, at that rate, in not too distant future, we should see Baby Bonnets grown in town and, you know, in areas where it normally wouldn't grow.

And, to me, that's an alternative. Either we can grow it in its historical site where it used to grow native because that land was destroyed, there's another option, we can encourage people and it's a beautiful plant and they can landscape in their homes. And we have a viable, diverse genetic population growing all throughout.

So those, the ones that are rare or ah, or ah uncommon, those I try to propagate as many as I can and, and try to sell to nurseries at wholesale so that they can distribute the population. But the other ones, its almost, almost impossible to grow them because of all the regulations and rules and stuff.

You know, it really disturbs me that I can own this ranch and I can have an endangered species, and you could be a federal law enforcement officer and this plant is federally protected and I can take ah, if I'm burning cactus pear for my cows, I can turn that torch into that plant and torch it and there's, there's nothing anybody can do about it.

I can destroy it if I want to. But I can't grow it. It's against the law for me to harvest seed and grow it.

And I, I find that, you know, totally ironic an that, you know, something definitely is wrong. When, when there is no laws to destroy those few plants that are endangered if you're the landowner and yet, if you are a landowner and you have them, you're not allowed, it'll be a federal, you know, you'll be breaking federal law if you propagate them, I mean, that is just incredible to me.

DT: Can you maybe mention other instances of foolishness or misunderstanding that maybe stands between us and good conversation?

BT: Some, some people are, like local ranchers they panic when they say there was an Ocelot. Because they think that immediately the federal government is going to come and they won't be able to hunt, they won't be able to farm, you know, there, there will be federal agents all over the place.

And, you know, that is a total misunderstanding. In fact, there are many programs, the Nature Conservancy and the Department of Interior, and Texas Parks and Wildlife, do a lot to encourage ranchers and farmers to, you know, if you, if you're farming and you poisoned your crop and an Ocelot came into your property and ate a rat that had been poisoned and it died, that's okay.

Don't panic. You know, we can allow a permit for one take or two takes but often times, I hear old ranchers say that they think that there's an endangered cat in my ranch and I still have 200 acres of brush so I am going to clear it to make sure the federal government stays away from me.

So, so some of those things, you know, it takes, it takes years of, of talking to people and making them understand, no sir. In other words, if you have it and you want to increase your your, your brush, there is a programs that will help you. I will grow them and then well help you increase your brush seeds.

You know, they, you own the land, you're, you're the king in your property. You don't have to panic and destroy it and make it even worse when, you know, so those, those things were still were still lacking in communicating with, with landowners and making them realize that it's not bad to have something that's threatened or endangered, it's good.

And I heard somebody tell me, it's against the law to have an endangered plant in your property if you're making money out of it. You know, I couldn't have an endangered plant here and have a tour and I'd be charging for the tour to come and see the plant.

Well, you know, it's an extra means of income and it might encourage me to, you know, save that area cause I am making money out of it. So I think that, on both sides, there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

You know, the, the agencies that, that make these regulations, they have to take a second look in the best interest of the plant or the best interest of the animal. You know, we have to be more flexible. We have to give the landowner a little bit more flexibility

and we, ourselves have to do things that, because a certain branch of the federal government is responsible for the reproduction of these plants and they're too busy reproducing them, they should be flexible enough to issue permits to people such as myself that I, I have proven myself. I have grown, I would venture to say, maybe 200,000 seedlings in, in five or six years.

I know how to germinate, I know how plants work, I know their nutritional requirements, their sun requirements. I can, I can practice in a related species until I become very efficient and then you give me four seeds and I can produce three plants.

And then, from there, I'll have a seed source and ten years down the line, I can give you 20 pounds of seed and somebody can trade and well have a, you know, those things in, in the way I, I feel that work needs to be done on both sides of the coin in order,

if we really care, you know, we should be more flexible on both ends and be prudent and, and careful but there are things that can be done to, to allow people to make money and also to allow people such as myself that are interested in preserving the species to give me the tools so that I can produce them and, you know, put them wherever, you know, federal properties or state properties. It doesn't matter so long as we preserve them.

DW: Have you become active in that? Obviously you speak well and you are an expert on the subject. Have you worked with a local legislator or a local congressperson or testified at hearings or gone that next level to become an active person in that political arena?

BT: I have testified in, in the Finance Committee in Washington in, in two separate occasions in, in two separate years. Mainly for, for the to, to encourage them to fund these programs that preserve land such as the Department of the Interior and the Wildlife Corridor.

We cannot preserve species if we don't have land and one of the ways, one of the reasons why were losing so many is because of habitat destruction. If we provide the, the, the habitat, the animals will come. You know, we don't necessarily have to have a recovery program for the Ocelot when we only have 100 acres of land.

But if we had 5,000 or 100,000 acres of land and we only had 20 pairs of Ocelot in that area, they will take care of themselves. If we don't have the time or the know-how, how to allow them to propagate, they'll do it. So the times that I have testified was to encourage them to fund some of these federal programs in order to preserve habitat. To preserve endangered or threatened species.

DT: I guess you've spent some time trying to educate Congressmen about these needs. Can you talk about your efforts to reach out to the next generation and tell us what's a good way to inspire them to care about the things that you've been interested in?

BT: Some of the things, you know, I recall a couple of years ago, a middle school principal asked me if I could go, go to his school and talk to a class during Arbor Day. And they wanted to buy a tree and plant it. And I said, nah, I'm not going to do it. I said, I'm not going to your cla...to your school and talk to a class and plant a tree.

I said, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to your school and we'll have a general assembly and we'll create a little macro-habitat. And he said, what are you talking about? I said, well, so we plant a tree. Why do we plant a tree and I talk to 24 students when I can talk to 400 students and we can create a little area where, two years down the line, they will see a little bird building a nest because now it is a little habitat.

They'll see butterflies, they'll see a hummingbird, they'll see things that then they can then connect to. Yeah, I remember two years ago, you know, we, we planted that because I said, and they will all participate. I said, you'll, you'll be amazed how many shovel-fulls it takes to fill a hole. And I donated about sixteen different species and I carefully selected them for color and shape and texture.

And I, I personally dug all the holes and then we had a general assembly and it was required by me that every single student in that class would have to put at least a shovel of dirt in that one, in that one hole.

And then to make it more exciting to them, I told them, I told all the teachers in advance I said, I want you to take paper, you know, like that paper they use for the adding machines.

Take a roll of that paper and tell your students, all of them, what were going to do tomorrow. And I want for all of them to sign their names and then I want you to roll it up real tight and tie it up with a little piece of string and bring it to the to the, to the thing that we're going to have.

So they all did. And then I told all the teachers to collect them and then I told the students, who are the students for teacher so and so? Well we are, and all your names are here and all your names are here, and all your names are here. And then we did a time capsule. And we buried it. I said, now when you graduate from high school, we're going to do this again.

And remember, remember all the little things that were planting here? And I want you tomorrow, I want you next year, I want you during the summer, bring your mother, bring your father, bring your girlfriend or bring somebody else's girlfriend and tell them, I planted, I helped plant that tree and I helped plant that tree.

And that's how I hope to make a connection with them. That it's something that belongs to you. You did it. Yes, I provided the, the holes and I provided the plants and I told you how to do it but you did it. It's yours.

If you see somebody messing with them, you tell them hey, don't be mess with that. We did it and we're going to see birds and were going to see butterflies. And its amazing. I, I would just, I couldn't believe it and the teachers couldn't believe it because they, they had said that in previous years, they would plant a tree, you know, an oak or whatever and they said two or three weeks down the line it'd be broken and next year it wouldn't even be there, you know, just a little depression.

And he said, you know, were amazed how protective they are. And they would weed it and they would water. And I said, well I guess its working. Cause that was my intention, to make them feel a connection that it's their property. So...

DT: I imagine that it became a favorite place for them. Maybe you could tell us what is a favorite place for you and describe it a little bit.

BT: I, even though I've traveled, you know, I've been to many places, I walk ten feet from here and it's like another world to me. Somebody told me, it's nice, it's nice that you live out in the brush country because you get to see the changes monthly.

You know, like during the drought and then during the summer and I said, no. I get to see the changes daily, almost every hour. I'm, I'm looking at an area here and I see the shadows and I see the way the suns coming down and see a plant that's just about bloom, an hour later it's blooming. I said, to me, I mean its like an hourly basis.

Things are happening here and I'm here to see them. I said, I feel bad that, you know, so many people are caught up on, on making their living and, you know, unless you're there, you don't see it. But when you're there, I mean, it's just constantly. You know, there's things happening every, every hour, you know, it's just and I'm just blessed so, so much that I'm here to see it all and experience it all.

And of, of all the places, you know, that I've been to, I could just walk ten feet into there and I'm in paradise. Just in heaven.

DT: Maybe you could show us a little bit of your paradise?

BT: I would be glad to.

DT: Thank you very much.

BT: Thank you.(misc.) [Walking and standing, discussing plants]

DT: Could you tell us about this plant, please?

BT: This is a native Yucca or a Spanish Daggers, some people call it. And this is a really fascinating plant because these little, little flowers are edible. You can take the leaves and you can put them in casseroles, in soups. You can pretty much substitute them for onions whenever you're cooking.

You just take the leaves, cut them up and use them like onions. You can put them in salads. They have kind of a, like a mild radish taste to them. In a couple of weeks, this little pistol where the seeds are will start to enlarge and it'll get about, well it gets bigger but when it's maybe twice this size, you can cut it and you can eat it like a cucumber. It has a cucumbery taste.

As it grows and matures, it gets hard and woody and very green and it's no longer edible. But we'll wait until the end of summer and it will turn into a blackish-blue and it gets real gooey and it starts to collapse because it's real ripe. And again, it becomes edible. You just collect the whole seedpod.

You brush off the ants because ants are really into the sugar and you put it in your mouth and you chew and you remove the fiber and the seeds cause it has real hard seeds and it is very, very, very sweet.

The leaves were used by the indigenous people to weave baskets (they're real hard I don't know if I can cut it) but you would just cut little, little strands of it. You would take the whole leaf and just cut it into, you know, this, these long strands, you would put it into a fire first and it would make it real soft.

And then after you get it fired and it's very soft, almost like a rope, then you just tie a simple knot [shows how] like so. And then you have a piece of string.

If you need a rope, you would tie two or three together and the length of the rope depends on how, however long you need it. During emergencies, you're lost need a little shelter, you don't have any rope or string, you got all the rope and string you need. We're out here two or three days, were starting to smell because we haven't taken a shower, we would then take a rock and we would dig some of the root.

We would cut it up and we would put it in a little can canteen or something with water, excuse me. It would make an excellent shampoo. So you could shampoo your hair and wash your clothes. At the same time, when we eat all the blossoms, it would remain this long stalk, with it's short branches would stay there. We would then cut the stalk.

We will build a little fire and we would roast it and we would eat it like sugar cane. It's a real sweat taste and has lots of vitamins and minerals, you know, typically vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D and some of the simple sugars.

So it's a very, very, very useful plant. It's a local Yucca our native Yucca that we have. I tell the students when were walking around that not everything is edible and they need to know the difference between what can we eat and what can hurt us. And this is one plant that they would avoid.

You know, like the boy scouts say, leaves of three, let it be. This is Coral Bean. It has a beautiful bloom. It's going to be blooming here in about two weeks. It's got these little trumpet-like flowers, they're scarlet color, kind of reddish in color. Excellent for hummingbirds and butterflies.

But the leaves and the seeds are poisonous. If you cut the leaf and get the latex into your fingers, it's probably, it's pretty bad stuff. But some things can cure.

During the winter we, you know, get exposed to the cold and oftentimes we get a cold. If we had a cold and it was accompanied with a lot of congestion, a lot of runny nose and we had sinus, we would make a tea from this plant, the Silver Sage. The indigenous people would boil the leaves, make a tea and drink it. They would add sugar if they had it or if they had honey from, from the bees, they would add honey to it.

Some plants they would not add sugar to, or honey. Some plants they would. And it's amazing that they have done studies recently, in the last couple of years, as to why did they add sugar to some things.

And some people, some people would say, well sure, you know, you're real sick, you haven't eaten, you know, your, your appetite's down, you don't have any energy, you drink water and you put sugar in it, you're going to feel better. I mean, you, you get sugar right? Sugar gives you energy.

Well they've done studies, they have taken the same plant and they've taken people that have the same symptoms a cold, runny nose, and a lot of sinus congestion, they give one tea made from cenizo with sugar or honey, they give the other person cenizo without it, and the one with it recovers much faster that the one without it.

So it appears that the chemistry is not complete until they added the sugar, whether it be honey or granulated sugar. So there's, they're the chemis...they even knew, you know, what chemistry to add. One plant back here (Walking to plant)

BT: One of my all-time favorites is this thorny brush here. Living here, next to the border, and even in the early days, you know, a rancher would be up here taking care of his stock and he would take the stock for water, be it at a pond or creek. He needs to drink water too so he would bend down and drink water right there with the animals.

And oftentimes the pool would be polluted. There would be amoebas in the water. And the saying here is, if you go to Mexico you can eat the food but don't drink the water because you will be very sick. You get amoebic dysentery, very prevalent in Mexico.

This is the cure for amoebic dysentery. This is called All Thorn Goat Bush in Spanish, I mean, in English. In Spanish its called Amargoso. Amargoso, in Spanish means very bitter. When you got amoebic dysentery, you'll know it.

You'll, uncontrollable diarrhea. Lots of diarrhea, low grade fever. You cut the twigs, the limbs, the leaves, everything. Basically the same recipe, one whole hand-full to about three cups of water. You boil the water, you throw the ingredients in there, you let them boil for about five minutes and don't even add sugar or honey.

You're wasting it because it's so bad, I mean, it tastes so horrible that if you add it, it would be horribly sweet, I mean, you taste it horrible anyway so we don't even add it.

But out of almost 200,000 plants that have uses of one kind or another, less than 1% have been studied under laboratory conditions. There's a lot of room, a lot work that needs to be done. This plant has been studied under laboratory conditions and the one part per million extract from the tea will paralyze the amoeba.

So they knew if you got those conditions, you boil the tea, you make it you drink maybe an 8-ounce glass, maybe three times a day for about four days. You have diarrhea, that little amoeba sticking through your lining of your gut, but you have diarrhea, you paralyze it and it just washes right out into your waste. So in about three days, you're back in business.

I remember many, many times when we would be out here and we would have diarrhea and immediately, I mean, we didn't have to wait for our parents to do it. We would do it and then we would hold our nose and we would drink it down fast because it is horrible. But then a couple of hours later, now we could eat and were controlling it. So it's amazing.

Of all the plants that we have here, very few do not have thorns. This plant here is called Coyotillo both in English and Spanish. It has a little green berry right now but, in a couple of weeks or maybe a month, that berry turns to a blackish-blue color.

And this plant is not poisonous but it might as well be. Because when you take the little berry or the leaves or the twigs, but especially the berry, if you take the berry and you bite down on it and break the seed, it releases a chemical substance and it kills all your nerve-endings.

So if you eat like a handful, within two hours, you would start falling because it mainly affects your legs. And then within four hours, you probably will not be able to walk, irreversibly. I mean, once it kills your nerve-endings, you're, that's it. There's nothing that anybody can do to bring you back.

It is very amazing to me that the, the, the people that suspected somebody of consuming the berries of a Coyotillo, they're blackish-blue and it would stain your lips. So if they ever saw a little kid running around and falling frequently, they'd say oh, he probably ate Coyotillo.

They would take the Coyotillo plant, they would dig the root and they would give him an antidote made from the root of the plant that harmed him. So that's, that's kind of amazing. And it's one of those things that would be very difficult to experiment since it's irreversible but that's how they did it.

They would make a tea from the root, didn't have to be the same plant. So, and it's kind of neat that the plant has chosen not to have thorns while the Amargoso has real tiny thorns and big, I mean, small leaves, big thorns, to keep browsing animals from feeding on it.

Coyotillo, no thorns, large leaves, relative to what we have here but it's got a chemical protection. When animals feed on the leaves, they get violently sick and they won't do it again. They learn by associating, I'm leaving that thing along. So it uses the chemical defense rather than the physical defense like these other plants.

This is Spiny Hackberry and it should start, I, I see little buds. It's going to start flowering in the next two or three weeks. This is the relative to the Sugar Hackberry that would grow along the river and it produces orange berries.

They're very, very sweet and very, this plant would provide moisture and it also provides nourishment because, even though we cannot extract the moisture, the plant extracts the moisture from the soil and it incorporates it into the fruit and a lot of the birds around here, they don't have to travel anywhere to drink water. They'll simply come to the Spiny Hackberry and feed on the berries and get their juice.

So when we were small and we were real thirsty and we happened to find granjeno around, we would eat the berries because they are very, very juicy and it's got a small seed and it's crunchy. So you can eat the whole thing. You don't waste anything. And it has lots of glucose, fructose and galactose so it gives you real quick energy. Very, very useful plant. It, it, it, we ate this.

It is amazing the mockingbird feeds a lot on this plant or at least their babies and they, they get their, their breeding cycle to match the time when the fruit on the Hackberry is ready. So right now they're building nests. The plant is starting to bud.

By the time they lay their eggs and have their babies, this plant will have food and they feed the berries to the birds. So it's kind of neat how they tie in their cycle in order for the fruit production.

DT: It seems like many of the plants that are useful are bushes or small trees. Are any of the grasses or forbs considered useful?

BT: There's a, there's a few small, small herbaceous plants I would say. One of them is an edible plant and it has, you know, to the untrained eye you would see it and be starving, not knowing that five inches below the ground is a not a ball but a carrot-looking like root. Cylindrical, varying in depth and size. And it's very nutritious and real tasty.

But if you don't know it, you know, the food source is right there. There is another one that also has a taproot like a carrot and that is a medicinal plant. That's the one that I told you was called Epona and it's used for the urinary tract.

Other than those two plants that have edible roots, I'm not aware of any other grasses that would produce grains in sufficient amounts that they could, could harvest. But, you know, there are so many trees and berries, you know, right, right here. It's a perfect example of this is called Klepin in Spanish or Lotebush in English.

Again, small leaves, lots of thorns. The berries are green. They will be turning purple/black in a few more weeks. This is another edible berry. You just take it and eat it. If when my wife prepares the dish, we often get people saying, that's not how the indigenous people ate it. And almost 100% of the time my wife's reply is, you probably wouldn't eat it the way they ate it.

You wouldn't like it. And one of the ways the indigenous people would eat the berries, they would just harvest them right from the, from the Lotebush and they would eat them. Well, we can do that but because we have developed other tastes, we wouldn't like it. It doesn't taste good at all.

In fact, this berry will not taste good until it's way over-ripened. It dries sort of like a prune. Probably the, the nutritional value of it has dropped tremendously but the taste has improved. It becomes a little sweet to eat. But the indigenous people would eat them as soon as they would get ripe, they would eat them.

One of the things that when the Indian tribes would fight with each other in the, in the heat of the summer, they would not fight anymore and they would maintain themselves within, within sight.

But they had to stop fighting because the Prickly Pear would produce the tunas or the fruit in the heat of the summer June, July around that time. And they knew that unless they stopped fighting to make time to harvest the tuna, they would not make it during winter cause in the winter here it's extremely hard.

There's hardly anything to eat. So they would, for the months when the tuna, when the Prickly Pear had tuna, they wouldn't fight. They would maintain their distances and, in fact, groups would migrate from, from areas they, they had their, here in South Texas, because we have so many Prickly Pear, Indian groups like from, from the coast where they mainly lived on shell fish and other things.

In the summer they would have to move here to harvest the tuna. Groups from Houston and other areas of the state, they would move here, they would migrate here. They would take the tuna and they would dry it and then they would pack and then they would take it for the summer, they would feed on the summer, in, in, I mean, in the winter.

In the summer they would consume as much as they could of the tuna. So it's very, very important crop. The tuna, the Mesquite and the Ebony were just as important as the rice would, would have been to the Japanese, the Orientals and corns would be to the Mayans. Those three crops were extremely important for, for the people that lived in this area. You know, they just couldn't survive without them.

DT: Could you... (cut to different part of interview)

BT: You know, the indigenous people depended largely on Mesquite. They ate it in many, many different ways. And it's kind of ironic that you can survive, you can do the things if you have the knowledge. Like knowledge is power. You don't have the knowledge, you could die with water or food right around you.

And I recall a story by [Texas Ranger] Captain [Leander] McNelly when they were here and there were a lot of Mexican bandits that would come here and steal cattle from ranchers and they were camped in, in King Ranch.

And this informant that they had came galloping in one day and told them, you know, that the Mexicans had stolen cattle and they were headed to Rio Grande City and they were going to cross just below Rio Grande City so McNelly would give his riders five minutes, from the time he said let's go, they had five minutes to settle their horses and get their canteens and rifles and whatever and let's go.

So they rode hard and came to the bottom of Rio Grande City and they waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. Well by about the second day, this one ranger was totally starved and he told the other rangers, when are we going to eat, you know, we always leave in such a hurry we didn't bring any supplies and I'm starving and my horse hasn't eaten anything?

And the other rangers said, why are you starving? And he said, well we're not eating. And they said, we're eating. Why aren't you eating? Eating what? He said, Mesquite. You eat the Mesquite beans, the pods and you feed them to the horse.

So he tried and soon thereafter, you know, he said he went on his way and he totally forgot about being hungry because of the seedpods.

Not only is this plant good for food but it's amazing because it produces almost all the nitrogen that the plant requires to grow and in an area where the soil is very depleted, you will see a Mesquite with lots of things growing at the trunk because it produces more nitrogen and it, it, the surplus feeds other plants.

When there is a condition known here, when you consume a lot of the berries that have, are high in sugar, somehow, in the mornings, your, your eyelashes stick together. It produces a resin in your sleep and it, it comes out in your tear ducts and it sticks together.

My grandmother would, would collect the seed, the leaves of the Mesquite and put them in a glass of water for a few hours and then in the next day whenever this condition would happen, they would put the liquid in there to dissolve that. But they also used it like Murine, when you had eye irritation, reddish of the eyes, they would use a few drops of the liquid from this plant in substitute of Murine.

The flowers of the Mesquite are edible. If I was to give you this flower where the flower buds have not opened and ask you to eat it, it would taste like grass and you would say, who would want to eat that.

If I would give you this other flower here where the blooms probably opened a couple of days ago, you would almost choke because it's real fuzzy and all the pistils and the pollen, a lot of it's still there. And it's very hard to swallow cause it's real fuzzy but this one here had opened probably a day before this one opened, so this one is not as fuzzy as that. And this one we could use.

We could put this in a soup or in a casserole or we could just, you know, we could just take like this and, and pluck all this stuff and just eat it. You know, we'd, we'd chew it down and, and swallow it. It has a, it has a really nice, nice taste to it.

Of course, the Mesquite beans were extremely important to the indigenous people. And they were very, very important when I was growing up. We consumed tons of Mesquite. All my family and I would, in the summer. Mesquites are really strange in that in, in a good rainy year, the crop is very poor. It would have very little Mesquites.

But in, in times of drought the, the more severe the drought, the more Mesquites will produce and the sweeter they are. So it kind of worked good for us because in rainy years there would be other fruits and things that we could eat.

In years of drought, when those things were not available, there would be ample mesquite and we would feed on lots of Mesquite for the stalk and, and, and for us to eat. So it's a very, very, very, nice plant to have if you know what you're looking for. It, it can provide medicine and it can provide food throughout the different parts of the year.

DT: Thank you for helping us to know what to look for and to know the, the outdoors is full of food and other kinds of useful resources.

BT: Well, thank you for being interested. End of reel 2096. End of interview with Benito Trevino.