Flowers for Tate..

Yesterday afternoon as we were driving back from a camping trip on the coast, we entered a beautifully shaded old growth forest. It was cool and green, with tall lovely stalks of purple flowers dotting the roadside. I mean, really lovely flowers. Like I wanted to have one in our car lovely. So, Chad slowed down the car and I leaned my torso out the window and snapped one off. It was so much more delicate than I had imagined it would be. The little purple bells were speckled with white and yellow, and the stalks and leaves were fuzzy and smooth, peach-like.

"Tate! Look!" I handed him this magical wand of a flower. He gave it a half-hearted little wag in the air and dropped it on the ground. Hmm, OK, that's OK, I'll just keep it by me. I stuck my fingers and nose in the little bells, I made everyone peer into it until they agreed that YES, it was a-maaaa-zing, I held it by the tail and let it dangle outside my window, catching air.

About an hour later, after stopping for lunch, we saw something move. Chad saw it first. Then our seven year old car-mate, Mia, spotted it. The most amazingly beautiful and freakish white spider with translucent legs and red splotches creeped its way along the dashboard. I don't like spiders, but it was really actually quite pretty. But who knew what it could be? Was it poisonous?  Sadly, the spider was not so enchanting to our seven year old friend, and she wanted it disposed of, fast, in anything. So, Chad did.

When we got home later last night and all 15 of our household guests were in their beds, I sat down at my computer and researched our little treasures. First, the spider. A very rare Flower Spider. Non poisonous. Totally harmless. Actually, all it wants to do it sit on pretty flowers all day in an attempt to blend in and live to see another day. Like all of us. And we squished it dead in a Brawny after it hitched a ride into our Volvo on a lovely little flower that I plucked from the Oregon woods.

Which brings us to our gorgeous purple flower stalk, which up until recently was sitting on my kitchen window sill. Also known as Foxglove. Or Witch's Glove. Or Deadman's Bells. Or Bloody Fingers. Notice a theme developing here? Like, um, this beautiful flower just might KILL YOU?? Allow me to share:

The entire plant is toxic (including the roots and seeds), although the leaves of the upper stem are particularly potent, with just a nibble being enough to potentially cause death. Early symptoms of ingestion include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, wild hallucinations,delirium, and severe headache. Depending on the severity of the toxicosis the victim may later suffer irregular and slow pulse, tremors, various cerebral disturbances, especially of a visual nature (unusual colour visions with objects appearing yellowish to green, and blue halos around lights), convulsions, and deadly disturbances of the heart.

Oh, the horror of this discovery! I gave this flower to Tate, to play with while in his carseat. It is a true miracle that he did not stick it right into his mouth, like he does with nearly every other object he encounters. My sweet neighbor actually alerted me to this one when she visited our house this morning and saw that in addition to fresh organic peaches that I was serving up Tate for breakfast, I also had some fresh poison as decor in our breakfast nook.

SO, the lessons for today are:

1. Be nice to strange white spiders that aren't doing anything to hurt you and just might be rare and exotic.
2. Don't give the most precious thing in your life POISON to play with.