Tuesday, May 31, 2011

♪♫♥♫Mares Eat Oats, ♪♫♥♫ and Does Eat Oats ♪♫♥♫ and Little Lambs Eat Ivy ♪♫♫ A Kid'll Ivy, too ♪♫♥♫...

♪♫•♥Wouldn't you?♪♫•*¨*•♥•*¨*•♫

I've heard that little song my whole life.  It was a song written before I was born and my father was a sophomore in high school and became popular during WWII.  I think the words changed a bit along the way and may have started with a farmer and a nursery rhyme, but it morphed into a song that obviously wasn't from a person familiar with goats, sheep, and horses. It's poison.


A goat kid won't eat ivy. Our dog started eating grass just after she was chewing on an ivy branch. I handed the branch to the sheep to see if they would taste it and the sheep yanked the ivy branch out of my hand super quick. All the sheep in the pen got a good bite. Poison. My English Ivy that's so pretty and looks like green stars is not good for any animal.
Our little doeling meeting her neighbor lamb
 This post is not exactly about ivy but "ivy and animals" and an important lesson a pot of ivy can teach me. I really hate ivy. It's a bit like when I ate a "Big Mac" when I was pregnant with Dustin 38 years ago. I can look at a Big Mac from McDonald's commercial on TV and not even smell it in person. I feel instantly sick and it's just like looking down in the car and getting car-sick. I know it sounds like I was tasting ivy. I didn't eat the ivy because I do know better, now.

My feelings for ivy came about because the fast-creeping plant is like an alien creature trying to climb into my house. I suppose I've seen too many Sci-Fi movies, but ivy goes up into the kitchen windows and is coming up under my porch through the tiniest of cracks and that to me, is freaky. Ivy isn't coming up maybe an inch or two, it's 5 feet, 51/2 inches from the bottom of my porch to the deck and my window is even higher and ivy even finds places to stick it's ugly head into the basement. If I try and take-off the plant or peel it from the house, ivy takes the paint right-off with it or leaves ugly feet marks.
Marvel Comics
Ivy hides all kinds of scary bugs and snakes, even rattlesnakes and lots of black widows. One black widow bit got our dear Little-Dog and she suffered so much from the spider. Ivy hides big root/branches under the lush green leaves and the heavy twines have been trippers to each of my children and now my grandchildren. It is an innocent plant with evil designs, lurking to pull us down. Really and truly, I hate it and it actually scares me.

I think that it's odd that the ivy is used  for so many decorations at parties and wedding receptions and probably the most used plant for adding to bouquets and  landscape designs.

Years ago, I planted the north side of my house lovely arrangements of Nasturtiums and Impatients. They looked perfect there, welcoming everyone to our home and then something happened. I will try very hard to say it in just a few sentences. Try. A young new bride gave me a potted plant from her wedding reception as thank you for helping decorate the Church and then cleaning up after the reception was over. I planted it right there by the edge of my house and in the same plot as my flowers. I thought, this might grow-up and become my beautiful ivy and rose covered cottage that Brigham Young wrote about in the Discourses of Brigham Young. I know he wrote only about the climbing roses, I think I added the ivy.

Something happened. I don't know why or what, maybe the new bride thought the plants weren't hers to give away or she wanted a garden at her new home. I don't know, but she wanted the potted ivy back. So I replanted it and stuck it gently back in the bestest potting soil and when she arrived here, the ivy was ready and she whisked-off.

This is interesting....and I still perplexed at what happened to the ivy. My pot of ivy was on her front steps, in the shade, and still in it's pot 6 weeks later, brown and dead. She didn't say a word and probably forgot that she had even given it to me and I had gently dug-it-up and sent it back home to her. It didn't bother me because "low and behold" the ivy was still in my garden and in fact, becoming huge. I must have somehow forgot a little prolific root. Ivy liked it here. Years later, I look back and still see the vision of the dead ivy and it reminds me of her taking the ivy back and maybe not nurturing it. I think of the young man that loved her so much and she wanted so bad as a husband, but she left him behind as she moved on to another... leaving all. The nurturing of her children were left behind, too. I make no judgements here because I honestly don't understand, but it just reminds me that even though she had what she wanted, it wasn't enough. My mother-in-law has a saying for that and it's "Much Wants More" No matter what the situation. If a person receives a promotion, an unexpected windfall, or even a new car, or fancy house...it's the natural man or woman, to want another car, a bigger house, another promotion, and more money.

Yesterday I walked by the wall of ivy (my own "Little Shop of Horrors" and Seymour right there opening it's gaping  mouth)
 I yanked off his arm, an entwined bunch of ivy crawling up and in my face, at the end of the steps. I broke off the ivy branch and began flipping it back and forth in front of our puppy. He loved the game and was ripping it up. His little tongue drooled. The voice inside said to him, "Eat grass, eat grass!" "The taste will go away." Little Duelly made a little doody puddle on the path and I easily avoided stepping in it. I was on my way to feed the rest of the livestock and cats, chickens, etc. I became worried about Duelly even more as he cried and rubbed his mouth. My daughter Kiely and Matt arrived and fed the animals while I tended to the puppy. My thoughts were how all over English Ivy is now considered a weed and kills trees. It's probably a lot like the pest plant in the Southern States like Kudzu, but I don't think Kudzu is poison. Ivy is evil!

I was just playing tug with Duelly and I was using the worthless ivy branch that I had pulled off wall, as his toy. Duelly was loving the attention. Why do I innocently get all those around me and even myself in so much trouble here on Danger Ranch? Couldn't the ivy be good for just a few minutes?
Sally-Horse
The beautiful sunset had begun and my horse had just returned from training school. I grabbed a fist-full of carrots, yes... I washed my hands of the ivy. My horse was crunching away and under my new coral jumper was a little puppy feeling better with paws and toes covered in loose puppy poop. Here is quite a hyper-Queensland Heeler doing a funny dance on the whole inside of my dress. Poop covered from knees to hem. The horse didn't notice... she was in heaven eating carrots and when she was done I walked like a bow-legged cowboy back to the ranch house. I stink. I "dog-eyed" the ivy as I pass the front porch and say, "I'm meeting ya' here at noon tomorrow" "Your days are numbered, mister." We are having a big, heavy, spraying ROUND-UP on the side yard at Danger Ranch.  I really wish I had left ivy in the pot.

Sour Grass,  Oxalis, or called, Sorrel
Children, at least our family all love Sour Grass, but all grandmothers and mothers discourage chewing it. You never know what has visited the flowers when we weren't watching.

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