Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,035
Tuesday started off with me catching up with old friends I hadn't seen in a while over breakfast and coffee, as I prepared for a brunch meeting with a client. At the time I was carrying the Handyman in an Diomedes Industries Earl sheath from Fiddleback Outpost. I really like this sheath a lot, this knife has needed a proper sheath for some time. It carries extremely well, and there is just enough of the handle exposed to facilitate grip for extrication while keeping the knife secure in carry.
With the meeting over, the needs established, and the lesson plan sorted out, it was time to head out. I would have to set up the classroom and, capture a few images I wanted for the slideshow, and gather some materials for the lessons with her and her son, that start next week, after weeks of discussions. I am working on a series of skills lessons from a perspective teaching a mother and son who are nearly completely inexperienced with a woodland environment. So the primary focus is on young minds. I noticed a few things in the process, so I grabbed a few images to augment others I have for a blog post I am writing, and a few I thought would make a good autumn is here and autumn awareness thread here for the forum.
The colors are just beginning to change, and the first leaves have begun to fall.
The fields are just starting to take on the fiery hues of autumn, with all of the yellows, golds, oranges, and reds. Wandering through them is one of my favorite ways to spend an hour or two. Though I imagine it could be rough on anyone with an allergy to bees or Golden Rod.
There is a lot of traffic among the flowers. There is a sense of urgency with the bees in all their coming and going.
I am glad to see our feral honey bee population is doing well. Some of the domestic colonies have had some issues in recent years.
It was actually watching and photographing the bees liking this particular plant a good deal that inspired this post.
Photographing them had me physically interacting with the plant. So being in the mid set of teaching skills to the young, I was seeing everything from that perspective. Hearing the sounds brought back thoughts and memories from years ago when I was first teaching my daughter about things to avoid in the woods, and keeping a very close eye on her when these plants were anywhere in our area or along out route. The plamt is Datura Stramonium, or commonly known as Jimson Weed, a toxic plant in the nightshade family. The plant has an interesting history beginning well before modern medicine, that I'm not going to go into. The information is out there in books and on the internet. I've read quite a bit of it over the last ten years. It was useful in specific applications pre-modern medicine, and if William Forstchen hits his mark anywhere near as well as George Orwell hit his, it may someday become important again. I am only bringing it up here in relationship to just how dangerous it can be for small children and why.
It can grow rather tall, but it can also stay small and close to the ground. It has bright flowers, that are somewhat unique and rather pretty. Small children are often drawn to pretty flowers and pick or pull on them
In the early stages the fruit itself does a pretty good job of discouraging curiosity. The spikey balls can be painful when grasped.
It is when the fruit dries and goes to seed in the later summer and autumn that the real concern begins. However, it does not end there. These pods hold a lot of small seeds that can have a high concentration of a very dangerous chemical. When the pod and seeds dry, shaking them or the branches they are on, can sound just like a baby's rattle. Something most small children are familiar with and tend to associate with a fun activity. When the pods are open the seeds will sprinkle out when shaken, and many small children have a tendency to put lots of things in their mouths that they shouldn't. Even if the poison intake was low enough that it wasn't fatal, and didn't do permanent organ damage, the thoughts of trying to work with a small child, in the woods, under the effects of a fairly strong hallucinogenic reaction, and all the possible results, are not a pleasant ones.
And this plant can have all three phases of growth going on simultaneously in late summer and autumn, the flowers to catch the attention of young eyes, and the open seed pods that can be such a danger to them.
The threat does not end in the autumn, or even in the winter, because much like with other toxic nightshades, the animals do not eat it. So if the weather isn't bad enough to break them down, pods full of seeds can still be found on dead plant stalks the following spring.
Though once the soft flesh has deteriorated away, and the seeds have all fallen away, the dried skeletal structure of the pods can be pretty cool looking.
Lots of Moonflower, Ipomoea alba, vines in the fields also.
Then there are other things around in the early autumn that are edible. Like Passiflora Incarnata....
Andy wild turkey. Pretty sure I could have gotten at least two of them with one shot
Hickory nuts are falling
and some of the walnuts
Some garlic seed heads still around here and there.
Several things around to snack on right now. Wild grapes and muscadines, hickory nuts and walnuts, and passion fruit that I found just wandering around.
But I had also brought my own snacks to go with it Some aged sharp cheddar and smoked turkey breast, and an onion roll.
.
With the meeting over, the needs established, and the lesson plan sorted out, it was time to head out. I would have to set up the classroom and, capture a few images I wanted for the slideshow, and gather some materials for the lessons with her and her son, that start next week, after weeks of discussions. I am working on a series of skills lessons from a perspective teaching a mother and son who are nearly completely inexperienced with a woodland environment. So the primary focus is on young minds. I noticed a few things in the process, so I grabbed a few images to augment others I have for a blog post I am writing, and a few I thought would make a good autumn is here and autumn awareness thread here for the forum.
The colors are just beginning to change, and the first leaves have begun to fall.
The fields are just starting to take on the fiery hues of autumn, with all of the yellows, golds, oranges, and reds. Wandering through them is one of my favorite ways to spend an hour or two. Though I imagine it could be rough on anyone with an allergy to bees or Golden Rod.
There is a lot of traffic among the flowers. There is a sense of urgency with the bees in all their coming and going.
I am glad to see our feral honey bee population is doing well. Some of the domestic colonies have had some issues in recent years.
It was actually watching and photographing the bees liking this particular plant a good deal that inspired this post.
Photographing them had me physically interacting with the plant. So being in the mid set of teaching skills to the young, I was seeing everything from that perspective. Hearing the sounds brought back thoughts and memories from years ago when I was first teaching my daughter about things to avoid in the woods, and keeping a very close eye on her when these plants were anywhere in our area or along out route. The plamt is Datura Stramonium, or commonly known as Jimson Weed, a toxic plant in the nightshade family. The plant has an interesting history beginning well before modern medicine, that I'm not going to go into. The information is out there in books and on the internet. I've read quite a bit of it over the last ten years. It was useful in specific applications pre-modern medicine, and if William Forstchen hits his mark anywhere near as well as George Orwell hit his, it may someday become important again. I am only bringing it up here in relationship to just how dangerous it can be for small children and why.
It can grow rather tall, but it can also stay small and close to the ground. It has bright flowers, that are somewhat unique and rather pretty. Small children are often drawn to pretty flowers and pick or pull on them
In the early stages the fruit itself does a pretty good job of discouraging curiosity. The spikey balls can be painful when grasped.
It is when the fruit dries and goes to seed in the later summer and autumn that the real concern begins. However, it does not end there. These pods hold a lot of small seeds that can have a high concentration of a very dangerous chemical. When the pod and seeds dry, shaking them or the branches they are on, can sound just like a baby's rattle. Something most small children are familiar with and tend to associate with a fun activity. When the pods are open the seeds will sprinkle out when shaken, and many small children have a tendency to put lots of things in their mouths that they shouldn't. Even if the poison intake was low enough that it wasn't fatal, and didn't do permanent organ damage, the thoughts of trying to work with a small child, in the woods, under the effects of a fairly strong hallucinogenic reaction, and all the possible results, are not a pleasant ones.
And this plant can have all three phases of growth going on simultaneously in late summer and autumn, the flowers to catch the attention of young eyes, and the open seed pods that can be such a danger to them.
The threat does not end in the autumn, or even in the winter, because much like with other toxic nightshades, the animals do not eat it. So if the weather isn't bad enough to break them down, pods full of seeds can still be found on dead plant stalks the following spring.
Though once the soft flesh has deteriorated away, and the seeds have all fallen away, the dried skeletal structure of the pods can be pretty cool looking.
Lots of Moonflower, Ipomoea alba, vines in the fields also.
Then there are other things around in the early autumn that are edible. Like Passiflora Incarnata....
Andy wild turkey. Pretty sure I could have gotten at least two of them with one shot
Hickory nuts are falling
and some of the walnuts
Some garlic seed heads still around here and there.
Several things around to snack on right now. Wild grapes and muscadines, hickory nuts and walnuts, and passion fruit that I found just wandering around.
But I had also brought my own snacks to go with it
Some aged sharp cheddar and smoked turkey breast, and an onion roll.
.
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