Goat head soup and Puncture vine floral arrangements. Plus, do we finally have a winner?
August 19, 2017
The name drawn this week for the $500 is Jim Meldrum. Let me know if you did the due diligence Jim!
If you are eligible, your wallet will be 500 smackers heavier than before we drew your name.
😉. I did like your goat head blog though. There has to be a market. It could be called organic goat head salad with a side of tumble weed brownies (leave out tumble and it will be a legal “hit” in WA).
Since Jim wasn’t logged on to the program, for the rest of you, there’s a chance you might still end up with the prize. But if you don’t follow the rules listed at the top of this page, you will be out some leafy greenbacks, just like the 6 or 8 losing pickee’s up to this point.
Speaking of leafy green, let’s talk Tribulus terrestris.
The leafy treat listed above is a beautiful lush plant with small delightful yellow flowers and requires very little care and cultivation once you have it established in your garden. It is prolific enough that you can dine on it morning, noon and night and still have enough left over for the neighbor’s dog,. You know, the one you’ve been wanting to run over if it steps off the curb.
Goat head soup is an unforgettable porridge delight that is easy to make and looks to me like it would be quite healthy to digest. Just add boiling water and stir. Be sure to start drinking the soup before the water quits boiling in order to distract your brain from the sure carnage in your esophageal region that most likely will follow your first swallow.
If you swallow one of the prickly pieces, I’d recommend you grab a broom stick and push it on down. If you don’t, it will stay lodged there for the duration. If you try to cough it up, it’ll hurt worse than the broom stick going down.
You’ll never forget the moment you decided to start chowing down on your first bowl of this delicate but hardy veggie!
And if you’re into flower and plant arrangements, this just might be your baby! Inexpensive, hardy, layer up layer of greenery and once in a while a dash of red if your thumb or forefinger happens upon one of the protective barbs that surround the seed pod.
It is a wonderful plant!
You don’t have to go out every spring and replant,. Baby goat heads pop out more prolifically each year. You don’t have to have a green thumb to raise it. In fact, you could be a paraplegic with all limbs amputated and still raise a bumper crop of the foliage. In fact, I’m paralyzed from the neck up and I have no problem raising whatever quantity IT feels like raising.
I just took this picture this morning.
City folk don’t get to enjoy it’s beautiful greenery. Tribulus terrestris is it’s botanical name and though you may forget the scientific nomenclature, you will never forget the plant once it gets a foothold on your property.
I’m not sure what percentage of the average American knows what goat heads are. Perhaps only rural country folk are in the know.
I knew a lady named Donna a few years back that was a babe in the woods when it came to the green and lush vegetation.
She bought some property I had in Connell that had been vacant for years. One day her husband came in from the back yard all excited. They had been planning on planting a garden of lavender but the heads of goat beat the lavender to the growing season that particular year.
“Honey!” he exclaimed. “You’ll never believe what we’ve got growing in the back yard.” He went on to tell her it was beautiful and lush and had beautiful yellow flowers. “We don’t need lavender to make our yard pretty. We’ve got this!”
They went out and over the next week or two, enjoyed the heck out of their neat little paradise.
Then one day Donna decided to take a walk barefoot through her beautiful and almost tropical slice of heaven. At approximately the same moment Donna put her foot into the cool and thriving foliage, she began receiving instant messages from that same extremity that there was a bit of a critical problem afoot.
She then used her other foot that was still outside of the jungle to do a hop, skip and a jump back in the house with just enough energy left to scream bloody murder for her husband. It took the rest of the morning to get her calmed down and extricate the green seed pods that had rattlesnake fangs projecting outward, available to snag any flesh within striking distance.
Jack and Donna’s lives and outlook went from 60 to 0 that morning. After quizzing a few neighbors, they soon understood their beautiful Garden of Eden had just become a never-ending bed of eternal tack weeds. These green villains would never be halted without endless effort and vigilance.
When they told me their story, I marveled and even laughed at their initial impression of goat heads. In fact, as they were in the middle of the story, I blurted out “Goat heads!” and beat them to the punch line.
Thinking about their experience, I realized that that is how a lot of things are in life. Initially, we happen on something we think is great, just like goat heads. It can be a myriad of things…alcohol, illicit sex and/or drugs, smoking, gambling and on and on.
The beckoning of seemingly harmless apparitions is as long as a 40 year-old goat head infestation. The mouth-watering prize looks great at first. Attractive, enticing and desirable. Just like the lush green plant. The longer mankind exists, the larger the foliage patch to pick from becomes.
Couple the attraction up with voracious and out-of-control appetites and pretty quick everything has gone wacko. Goat heads don’t quit. Addictions don’t quit. They come back day after day, year after year. Choking out crops and gardens. Stifling lives. Ruining families.
Shoes, animals and tires pick up the sharp-speared seeds and then get deposited wherever their vehicle of choice jettisons them. More than once I have walked from one room into another and ended up screaming and hopping around in barefoot pain from a thorn that someone’s shoe deposited a day or two before. (Truth be known, it was probably my shoe)
Many is the time I have seen the pain and agony goat heads and addictions have caused.
Eradication of both these varmints is much harder to control after the hook is set than avoidance at the initial stages of attraction. I’m of the opinion Satan uses the temptations of this world and makes them look just like the bountiful vegetation of puncture vine unlimited.
Desirable at first. Later on, not so much.
I’ve seen pain, death, suicide, jail time, depression, many types of behavioral dysfunction, relationships destroyed and the continual breakup of families occur from this primal luring by lush and desirable enticements. Admittedly, I’ve dealt with a bit of this tendency myself. Most people have. I’m not drawing from an empty well here.
Those who scoff at this portrayal are probably the same who are looking forward to their next fix with whatever rings their particular goat head bell from hell.
