If You Go Into The Woods
If you go into the woods of late you're in for a big surprise. Beware! All is not as it may seem. Danger lurks. Be wary, I reiterate. Innocence has fled, evil has crept its wicked way, slithered into position where once kindness sat upon the earth.
You will be fooled. You will see birds in flight, most especially those beacons of peace upon earth, doves, flitting about. Robins too, those harbingers of spring, soon to leave these winter-frozen climes. They begin to gather, their presence cleverly cloaks the perils that lay awaiting your entrapment. Go forward with great care.
You have been forewarned.
Do not let your guard down, even when you see the enchanting sight of colourful Monarch butterflies flying here and there among the wild fall flowers. They too are soon to depart, ready to leave us in the grips of sere fall, leading into frigid winter.
Take care with your charges, those creatures who normally accompany you upon your woodland jaunts. Their haircoats will be victimized, you will then be left to endeavour to cleanse them of their miserably unwanted burden. For dried wild flower heads lurk in the underbrush, ready to latch.
Once-innocent and even beautiful flowers have been transmogrified into deadly, clever little minefields. Cunning Nature has thus equipped them, so that the presence of an unwary animal or bird becomes their assurance for enduring preservation. All very well, but when one's canine companions return from these hikes with coats plastered in miserable little green or grey poinks of dried vegetable matter, they're not seeds, they're a trial and tribulation.
Aha! See there, those bright red berries looking so lusciously tempting bobbing on the stalk of a woodland plant once green and thriving? That, my friend, is Red Baneberry, taste one and you die! Be prepared, do not be tempted, walk on and save your life...!
Those ubiquitous mosquitoes of the culix strain are everywhere, slavering to land quietly on your unprotected flesh, the female lowers her deadly proboscis injecting her poison, withdraws your precious blood and is off again before you even realize you have been violated. This is no ordinarily-miserable mosquito. This one carries the West Nile Virus. You have been warned!
And there, those fungal growths popping up hither and yon. Some, needless to say, innocuous in nature and even lovely in their own creepy way. But what are they? These fungal growths flourish in the face of death, for they grow inexorably, upon the corpses of trees, dead roots, decaying matter. Some are deadly poisonous, do not nibble! For to do so is to dabble in death - and that's pretty final.
Beware, take care! And have a good walk.
posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, August 22, 2006
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