Dress for success, take an umbrella

Not one of the more beautiful days here in paradise.

Saturday afternoon the dog and I ducked out between rain showers and managed to walk down to the east end of the paved road.  It was a dull gray afternoon walk but the temperature was low due to a weak cold front moving south.  When we arrived at the end of the road we saw that the hay I photographed the other day, has now been rolled up into bales.  We also saw that Zig-Zag the bull has broken into one of the bales already and made a mess. We saw a couple of the wild flowers that grow up this time of the year along our roadside. The first was Bladder pod.   This is a plant that grows along any untended roadside here in Grand Bay.  

They look like beans but their not.  

 It will grow to be 3 or 4 feet tall and after blooming the pods will appear.  They hang there until they dry and fall off.  The plants and seed are poisonous to domestic animals so most of the cattle folks around here work to keep this plant out of their fields and stored hay.   The other plant is a Showy Crotalaria which grows in spikes at this time of the year.

Crotalaria , pretty and dangerous.  

The yellow flower are very pretty and as the name implies are very showy.   The flowers eventually fall off and are replaced by hanging bean pods. The pods dry and the loose seeds in the pods make them sound like baby rattles or rattle snakes when you walk through them in the winter.   These plants and their seeds are poisonous to cattle as well.   All these poisonous plants must make cattle ranching a difficult task around here.  I can look down the road where I walk and see both Bladder pod and Crotalaria growing in profusion up and down the road.  I guess they are a fixture.  Thanks for reading my blog.  Bye.