Walkin' Shoes

We had our "plant walk" on Sunday also and it seemed to be a success. Everyone that attended enjoyed it and even though the weather wasn't great, it didn't rain and no one stepped on a snake. Darryl is extremely knowledgeable about all kinds of plants and has some good stories too. He told about one other plant walk he just did where a man from one of the northern states attended. Darryl will have you taste several different plants and such during his talks and he gave this guy a leaf to try. The man said it tasted pretty good but it after chewing on it for a couple of minutes he felt that he was having a strange reaction to it in his feet and legs. A sort of burning and increasingly painful feeling. Darryl quickly informed him that it was not the plant he ate but that fire ant bed he was standing in that was probably doing the damage.
When we first started to build the house, we just had to start indiscriminately clearing the land because the brush was so thick we couldn't see how the land laid or anything. In doing so, I'm sure we cleared out some trees and things I would have liked to have kept but you can only do so much by hand. I hope to return alot of the area around the house to a naturalized setting, using native shrubs and plants, without any real lawn area. Because of the issues with fuel, pollution etc., I would like to not ever mow again. I know they have electric mowers but I just hate to mow also. There are just so many more enjoyable activities to be involved in. Of course, all of that is a long way off but I do try to spend an hour or two each weekend planting something or doing some kind of yard work.