The Krazy Kyles

As a fun Sabbath project, I've been trying to photograph and identify various plants along the nature trail behind our housing development. Obviously many of the plants aren't all that exciting. In fact this could probably be relabeled, "Common Weeds of College Place". But I'm learning fun things about plants in the process.

Flax (Linum usitatissimum)
	Blooms late spring (May). Bright blue flowers. Grows to nearly 3ft tall. Useful for it's edible seeds and fibers.

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Common Mullein (Verbascum thapsus)
	Tall 5' to 6' in height. Produces velvety leaves and yellow flowers. Prefers sunny areas.

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Wild Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum)
	Tall 5' to 6' in height. Each plant produces multiple purple flowers. These flowers are unique due to long spines that grow up around the flower. Prefers sunny areas.

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Elderberry (Sambucus nigra)
	Large bush with small bluish white berries.

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Cleavers (Galium aparine)
	Rapidly spreading vine with sticky leaves and seed pods. Produces small white flowers. One of the inspirations for the creation of Velcro.

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Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum)
	Tall plant with small white flowers and roughly triangular divided leaves. Very Poisonous, leave this plant alone!

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Bittersweet Nightshade (Solanum dulcamara)
	Upright plant, with purple shooting star type flowers. Mid to late summer Red and Green berries grow. Berries are attached to the stem by a five pointed star shaped sepal. Not as poisonous as Deadly Nightshade, but it is still wise to avoid ingesting any part of this plant.

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Mint (Mentha)
	Toothed leaves, growing in groups of two that may also be combined with two flowering stalks. Square stem with small white flowers. Each flower has 2 fused lobes on top and 3 fused lobes on the bottom. Leaf smells decidedly "minty" when crushed. Appearance is very similar to stinging nettle, which does not smell minty and has small spines on the stalk and undersides of the leaves.

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Common Mallow (Malva Neglecta)
	Rounded leaves with seed pods that resemble buttons or cheeses. These seed pods are edible containing a relatively large amount of protein and fat

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Orange Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)
	Native to North America. This plant has been used as a traditional remedy for Poison Ivy. It produces pods that, when ripe, explode at the slightest touch. This gives them another nick-name, Touch-Me-Not.

Laura and I have officially moved to College Place, WA. All 26 ft of our life sitting in a moving truck waiting to be unloaded (soon I hope!).

Karl Haffner preached a good sermon this morning about "change", the inevitability of it occurring and it's irreversablility (they just changed the name to "University Church"). Funny, I could have sworn I lived here before! In reverent tones during the sermon Laura and I noted that our return seems to have happened just as we were liking Portland (minus the commute).

We are looking forward to moving in, settling down, working out (@WWU), swimming (@WWU), playing in Lions Park and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. Ya'll are more than welcome to come by and see the new digs (after Monday).