{"id":20459,"date":"2013-10-26T08:00:07","date_gmt":"2013-10-26T14:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/?p=20459"},"modified":"2013-10-21T12:53:48","modified_gmt":"2013-10-21T18:53:48","slug":"assume-it-is-a-poisonous-plant-until-you-know-it-is-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyimprovisations.com\/assume-it-is-a-poisonous-plant-until-you-know-it-is-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Assume it is a Poisonous Plant Until You Know it is Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is rather vogue<\/strong> in some circles to find edible wild plants, which are otherwise usually known as weeds. My husband sometimes goes around taste testing my landscaping while saying things like, “I heard this might be good.”<\/em> As I protest, he counters with, “If I die, don’t eat it! Wait at least a couple of hours from now to see how I do.”<\/em> But all iron gullet adventures aside, it is wise to investigate the properties of plants in your yard. Both children and animals tend to randomly decided to eat things, or feed things to each other, or eat animals that have eaten things. Life can be diagramed by who eats what and whom.<\/p>\n

We experienced this<\/strong> in a rather horrific way a few years ago when the children innocently gave our new goats a handy snack (as told in this guest post for the D&B Supply blog)<\/span>.<\/a> I went through stages of wanting to kill all green things in the yard. Part of the challenge is that there are SO many varieties of just weeds. My acre is never weed free. I am still not only learning about plants that have been around for years, but finding new ones that show up from parts unknown!<\/p>\n

Fortunately, this subject<\/strong> of dangerous plants has previously fascinated other people and there are books and websites with information. Not long after our incident, we found a couple of books at the used book store. As did this author (Deadly Beautiful: The World’s Most Poisonous Animals and Plants)<\/a>\"\"<\/span>, we noticed a trend of the eye-catching being the poisonous. The nature shows always say this is a “warning,” but some animals and people obviously see it as an invitation. Kind of like “courting death.”<\/p>\n

I bought<\/strong> my husband these mushroom books and was relieved to see him and the children read them closely.<\/p>\n