Oh! We get this in our pastures! It really likes growing against the fence. We try and remove it frequently because, even though this thing SCREAMS poison, horses tend to be a little… empty in the skull and eat things that are clearly not edible. We haven’t had any horses eat it, but always better safe than sorry. Another reason that’s a lot less common and less likely is that if it grows on a patch of fence without electric the horses might try and scratch themselves on the fence and crush the berries, dying purple streaks in their fur, which is not fun when you’re running a carriage business.

over the summer, a plant started growing all over our yard. it came in very fast and in inconvenient parts of the yard, so we took it all out. this week i found new sprouts growing and identified it as common pokeweed. the sources i read said it's toxic to humans and animals if ingested and that we should keep it from growing, but i've learned from your blog that weeds serve important ecological purposes like all plants. do you know if common pokeweed is beneficial to have in our yard?

Pokeweed berries, while poisonous to you, are food for birds (it turns their poop magenta).

There is no shortage of pokeweed, so there's not necessarily harm in removing it, but its berries and flowers have their uses as food for birds and insects. Pokeweed is also good for making dye, if you're into that.

Now, for clarity on the poison part: It's really only worth worrying about if you have a small child around that would grab and eat the berries. You would have to intentionally eat more than a bite to get poisoned, and it won't poison you just from contact.

(You can also technically eat it—if you pick the leaves while they are very young and boil them 3 times, throwing the water out each time and replacing it with fresh water. It's called poke salad and my Mamaw ate it growing up. I find it fascinating that humans ever learned this, given that pokeweed looks like it was designed by an artist asked to draw an obviously poisonous plant. I don't want this information, given for informational purposes, to be on my conscience. Please do not eat poke salad.)

As OwlVid said, it can be done correctly! When it’s properly regulated.

Sorry to bother you with non-owl related things, but do you happen to know how ethical horse racing is?

In general? It really isn’t. The horses used are often raced too young and are lame by the time they’re five years old because of it. Since a lot of money is on the line from betting, there is a very present issue of people harming and/or killing rival horses to sabotage them.

Could horses be raced ethically? Of course. But that isn’t the reality of the sport at this time.

Some folks meant to cancel with us but forgot to. Took us a while to explain that they can’t get a refund when we’ve already arrived because loading up and gas is the most of the cost, not the job itself ����

This is your periodic reminder to stop feeding, petting, grabbing, and otherwise harassing the wildlife. In addition to the danger you put yourself and other people in, when you habituate a wild animal to human food or contact you set them up for disaster. A fed animal is a dead animal.

Sleepy beastie

Charles Wain - George Melies inspired

I find it funny that Kira has gotten noticeably bigger than her mom. There is some perspective but it’s honestly not that much

Horses get up so weirdly

We had our first funeral gig yesterday, and literally the moment we loaded the coffin into the hearse it was like the clouds dumped a bucket of water on us

Trotty trot

there’s been a lot of talk about this in british equestrian circles but i haven’t seen much outside of that- don’t feed horses without permission from the owners

horses can’t throw up, meaning if they eat something they shouldn’t it can cause them to colic which is often fatal. even food that seems like “horse food”, some horses have dietary requirements and there’s a choking risk. even if the horse looks skinny- if you have a welfare concern you should contact the relevant authorities, not try to feed horses yourself

No but in all seriousness, memes aside, much love to all my friends in the UK right now. I know shit's about to be chaotic and nationalistic and shitty, and I hope the media circus ends as quickly as possible.

Strange beasts in my yard

What’s wrong with eating honey?

Unfortunately, like factory farmers, many beekeepers take inhumane steps to ensure personal safety and reach production quotas. It’s not unusual for larger honey producers to cut off the queen bee’s wings so that she can’t leave the colony or to have her artificially inseminated on a bee-sized version of the factory farm “rape rack.” When the keeper wants to move a queen to a new colony, she is carried with “bodyguard” bees, all of whom—if they survive transport—will be killed by bees in the new colony. Bees may be killed or have their wings and legs torn off by haphazard handling.

According to the Cook-DuPage Beekeepers Association, humans have been using honey since about 15,000 B.C., but it wasn’t until the 20th century that people turned bees into factory-farmed animals. Happily, many sweeteners are made without killing bees: Rice syrup, molasses, sorghum, Sucanat, barley malt, maple syrup, organic cane sugar, and dried fruit or fruit concentrates can replace honey in recipes. Using these will keep your diet bee-free.

Photo from a couple days ago I forgot to post

They don’t live there, they’re in there while waiting for the farrier