NOT a Euphorbia

Sometimes we humans just have to learn things the hard way. We were sitting with Dana and Jim under the arbor last evening, enjoying the balmy temperatures and a glass of wine. Rudy was digging away, as is his wont, and OilMan was keeping an eye on his Barbecue rotisserie.

Rudy finished his digging and began rolling in the dirt and scraping his face against the ground, so we took him down to the house and gave him a bath. When his eyes started swelling up and he was vomiting, Dana and Jim scooped him up (he is a small wirehaired daschund), wet and dazed and rushed him to the emergency vet, while I looked up Euphorbia on the Internet. "The plants are annual or perennial herbs, woody shrubs or trees with a caustic, poisonous milky sap (latex). In contact with mucous membranes..., the latex can produce extremely painful inflammation. Congealed latex is insoluble in water, but can be removed with an emulsifier like milk..."

Eventually, as we wrapped up the chicken and put away the salad greens, we got a text from Dana. "Rudy isn't dead. He's getting medication to coat his mouth and esophagus and he got an injection of something too. He's drinking milk"

First thing this morning, dressed in a long sleeved shirt, long pants and gloves, I tackled the Euphorbia removal. I hate these plant and they are all over the steep, rocky hill behind our house. Digging out their deep roots is no easy matter while teetering on a steep slope, especially when surrounded by spiky, barbed plants should you tumble down the hill. Dana arrived after I had taken out three plants and together we took out three more.

Unwilling to blip these despicable plants, I succumbed to doing a butterfly blip--such a nice contrast to the cratered hill, the empty pond and open pump hole, the scattered shovels, rocks (removed from the fireplace, destined to become steps) and the mounds of dirt, emptied from the veggie box in a vain search for a maurading mole and placed on a big blue tarp.

Final text from Dana, "Sedated doggies are good doggies! No interest in the three legged cat thuclunking past..."