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Sugar Stealers

Posted by RRC on April 07, 2008 at 16:39:

In Reply to: Sugar Stealers posted by ESC on April 07, 2008 at 09:57:

: : Most of us know about dandelion clocks. When we were children, we would blow the ones that had gone to seed. The number of blows it took to clear all the seeds would be the presumed time. But did anyone else have a name for the individual seeds attached to their bit of fluff? In Warrington, Lancashire (now Cheshire) we used to call them "Sugar Stealers". I wondered if anyone knows how that name cam about? I do remember that during hot summer days, when we left the windows and doors open, the seeds would sometimes land in the sugar bowl. Although they used to get everywhere.

: I have a faint memory of the custom of tickling a child under the chin with the flower and asking, "Do you steal sugar?" If the child laughs, he does.

I've never heard it called a clock before. I have heard it called a parachute ball and the seeds are parachutes.
On the dandelion clock, is it ever much past 3 o'clock? Reminds me of the game where you twist an apple stem while reciting the alphabit to find the first letter of your future wife/husband's name. All the Thomases and Wilmas are doomed to remain single. ;-)

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