Sunday, July 12, 2009

Barbed Wire

Yellow daisy-like flowers grow in the fields all around us. They're very common. These are growing on the edge of what was once used as a horse and donkey paddock out behind our house. The barbed wire encloses the paddock.

Yellow daisy-like flowers with multiple flower heads.

When we first moved here, the paddock's owners kept a horse and a donkey there. One day the horse disappeared. A couple years later, the donkey was gone, too. But we still hear the donkey braying (is that what donkeys do?) in the distance, so they must have moved him closer to their house.

Now the paddock grows wild. In other words, it's not being grazed any more. Once in a while someone will mow it down, so there are no shrubs or trees encroaching. But it's full of wildflowers, like these, and that makes it beautiful all summer long.

7 comments:

  1. These flowers are known as Helianthus. This particular one is more like the "Sunshine" species but with less petals - I could be wrong.

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  2. They are ragwort / Senecio / Séneçon. I'm not surprised the horse disappeared. Ragwort is very poisonous, especially to horses !

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  3. Is an apéritif dinatoire what folks eat on Sunday nights since they eat a bigger meal in the middle of the day? Or can it happen any night?

    Your guests are in for a treat with your cooking.

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  4. i enjoy the colour yellow; they are lovely flowers for me.

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  5. beaver, now I'll have to look them up.

    susan, that seems odd, since they grow everywhere.

    evelyn, apéro dînatoire can happen any time!

    urspo, You would love the fields of sunflowers blooming all around us now.

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  6. Indeed it does grow everywhere. Horses are (mostly) smart enough to avoid it fresh, but if it gets into hay they will eat it. It's a cumulative nerve poison.

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  7. susan, I see. Tricky stuff!

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