Besides all the weeds growing in our yard and garden, we’ve got some shrubby brushy stuff nearby the house that we assume needs to go. Some of it looks like it’s been cut down to the ground before, but comes back anyway, some is just too close to the house and rubs against the siding.

In this category is a shrubby thing growing up underneath and around the lilac bush by the kitchen window. We’ve meant to get around to pulling it out, but lacked serious enough tools to take it on earlier in the year, and by now, we’re busy and it’s huge. Like so many things, it stopped seeming urgent. And it’s flowering at the moment, which is kinda pretty.

What do its flowers look like? Exactly like the kind Lottie + Doof (my favorite food blog) are calling elderflowers and making fritters and cordial out of! Good morning, serendipity, could it be true?

We did some plant identification checking, and sure enough, that’s an elderberry right outside our window. Score! I imagine this plant is not there by chance after all. I wonder who harvested it before us, and what they used it for. Elderberry wine? Jam? Juice?

As for us, elderflower fritters, here we come!