Goldenrod

Fleta headed to Coin early! She brought rain with her—3/4 an inch! We collaborated on our usual—a dna genealogy mystery! Each evening we picked a Netflix movie! I’m hoping Helen will come soon.💙

I bought frozen Walmart biscuits for breakfast and told Fleta I’d tell Helen I made them but she wouldn’t fall for it.

Goldenrod is blooming! Goldenrod is filling my neighbors pastures! Logan and Astrid have bush hogged our meadow so they aren’t growing there. Running eyes and sneezing are blamed on these plants but its pollen is large and sticky, not small and wind-borne like that of ragweed, the true culprit. Goldenrod flowers are a magnet for flies, beetles, wasps and butterflies. Goldfinches and sparrows love goldenrod seeds. Cattle and horses aren’t fond of it. Goldenrod contains latex. Pioneers used it as a yellow dye. 

During World War I the price of rubber soared and Henry Ford asked   his friend Thomas Edison to see if any native plants could be used as a source of rubber. Of the plants Edison tested, he found several goldenrod species contained latex compounds. One species had over 6 percent in the leaves. But synthetic rubber was produced in the lab and both Ford and Edison passed during World War II, so nothing ever came of making rubber from goldenrod.