Outside

Jul. 23rd, 2004 09:41 pm
farla: (Default)
[personal profile] farla
Sometimes it's amazing the sort of things that no one pays attention to.

My mother likes gardening, and so, when we moved, one of the things she wanted was to plant a garden. We did, and I took over watering it mainly because no one else remembered. There are also plants left over from the last owners that needed watering, and potted plants my mother got from friends. There's also a large tomato plant that was added in one corner of the garden because there's always a tomato plant.

Watering all of them is strangely nice. I don't hurry through it like I usually do with tasks, and I go out daily regardless of if it rained earlier or if it's going to rain later. I'd water a barren patch and the next day see a two-inch sprout. The plants are coming up well.

The rest of the yard is very patchy. It's been literally years since anything was done to the grass. There are now five or six kinds, all in clumps and leaving wide areas barren. There's also wood sorrel, which seems to be doing about as well as all the grass combined.

Wood sorrel is a great plant. It looks like clover, but it has pretty, heart-shaped leaves and is much thinner and delicate. I remember the first time I found it, back when I was three or so. I was outside and for some reason had taken a bite of one of the plants in the garden we had there. I have no idea why I did so, I was probably a dinosaur, since I remember I would play that with great dedication. I found out wood sorrel tasted nice. It has a lemony flavor and every part can be eaten. I ate a lot of it, remembered someone had told me clovers were poisonous, decided it was a clover, went to ask my mother, and discovered that it wasn't clover or poisonous. (I then spent the next thirteen years of my life telling people this and having them think I was either wrong or trying to get them sick.)

Some foolish people would call wood sorrel a weed. But it's pretty and grass-colored and soft and people like that are annoying.

And not only is it pretty, flowering, and low-maintenance, it also makes really fun exploding seedpods. I had completely forgot how much fun it was to touch the pods and have the tiny seeds spray everywhere. I managed to coax both cats over and spray them after a lot of trying, which confused them a great deal.

Despite my best efforts, I was unable to get my brother to do the same. The lure of exploding seeds proved too weak to pull him away from his video games.

Date: 2004-07-24 03:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] katei3.livejournal.com
you had me with the description of the sorrel until you reminded me about the seeds. Ugh!! Weeds weeds everywhere! And worse than dandelions! :P

Heh but that's just me. (Are you the type that doesnt like pulling up plants, regardless of whether they look nice or are "weeds?")

Poisonous clover?

Date: 2004-07-24 01:54 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I'm pretty sure clover is edible. I've eaten the flowers a few times (because I'm weird) and with no side effects. Maybe only the leaves or roots are poisonous or maybe it's because I ate it in such small amounts. If only all plants had exploding seed pods... I can just imagine people harvesting watermelon.

Date: 2004-07-24 04:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] farla.livejournal.com
I don't mind pulling up things I consider weeds (grass in areas where it shouldn't be) but wood sorrel is nice, it's the same color as grass, and it makes pretty flowers. Of course, I don't really mind dandelions either.

Re: Poisonous clover?

Date: 2004-07-24 05:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] farla.livejournal.com
Yeah, clover's fine to eat. At the time, one of the other kids had said she'd read in the newspaper that clover was poisonous. In retrospect, she was about a year older than me, couldn't read, and newspapers don't report stuff like that.

Well, technically wood sorrel's poisonous if you eat enough. But 'enough' requires you to eat a few bushels, and almost everything is poisonous in large quantities. Spinach is poisonous if you eat too much, and so is meat.

Date: 2004-07-26 05:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lonefox.livejournal.com
Hello Farla,
this is lonefox from the oc_analysis community. I know this may sound a bit wierd, but I recently posted a new character on that community (from the same story as Misty Elfmerum) and I was wondering if you could take a look at her. You did such a great job on Misty that I was hoping you could do the same for Ayla (the new character). Please do!

Re: Poisonous clover?

Date: 2007-06-24 01:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ember-reignited.livejournal.com
Spinach is poisonous if you eat too much...

Am a bit worried now. After I don't eat well for a few weeks, I'll occasionally go on a massive spinach binge. Is this a bad idea?

Re: Poisonous clover?

Date: 2007-06-24 03:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] farla.livejournal.com
Don't worry, you'd have to pretty much be living off spinach for you to have any problems. (Pretty much any nutritious food will be bad in large enough quantities.)

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