Today we learned about poisonous berries, namely poke berries. These were used as dyes for ponies by Native Americans, and as the ink of the Declaration of Independence! Here are some pictures of poke berries we have here at Dolly's house:

This is a younger set of berries, with their white flowers showing.

Every part of the poke plant is poisonous, especially the roots. Many people eat poke salad, which is like boiled spinach, but I don't think we will ever try it. It takes several boilings, many people say only two, with the first one being in salt water, to leach out the toxins. I think we will just stick with spinach and lettuce instead, maybe dandelion greens on occasion.