Saturday, June 19, 2010

Purple Poo


We have two varieties of mulberry on our property – the sort that start off green and turn white when they are ripe; and the sort that start off green and turn purple. There is only one of the white variety, and many of the purple sort.

When we first moved here, we picked the fruit and I made mulberry jam, which often turned out as mulberry syrup, which was very tasty, but quickly became more trouble than it was worth; after all, one can only eat so much mulberry syrup.

Mulberries are rather messy. A mulberry tree overhangs the road into town and the pavement underneath is black with cars driving over the berries and crushing them.

They are messy in another way too. These fruit are also a favorite of the birds, who gobble them down and feed them to their babies.

And what goes in, must come out.

Infection began developing on Wednesday in his legs, and I took a picture of his dragon tattoo just in case the abscess that was forming damaged it.



Friday morning, after Richard took Nat to the hospital for IV antibiotics, I washed his sheets in bleach to disinfect them after the abscesses on his legs drained during the night. In fact, I washed several sets of his sheets and pegged them out on the line to dry in the warm sun.

They dried very quickly, and a little while later when I went out to bring them in, two of the sheets were sporting purple blotches, left there by birds flying about the yard. So I brought those in and scrubbed them with soap and a toothbrush and back on the line they went.

And when I drove to the hospital this morning, I noted two purple blotches in the windshield of the car. The antibiotics are working, so we hope he will be able to come home on Monday. I will have to wash the windshield for the next trip.

2 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Sorry about those awful leg abcesses - isn't it wonderful what antibiotics can do though - I do hope they are fully gone now.

Purple poo - yes I can imagine it - but mulberry trees are so lovely aren't they - maybe it is a small price to pay.

Oklahoma Granny said...

My husband hates mulberries for that very reason - purple poo.