The golden path to the chickens

Here are some photos I wanted to share of the beautiful crotalaria growing up beside the path to the old "Chickshaw" coop with the baby chicks in it. I hadn't been this way for a little while because all the animals are on the other side of the garden.

Walking between the sweet-smelling yellow plumes of flowers is like walking through a living veil. Other lovely little flowers like daisy fleabane (Erigeron strigosa, if I've spelled it correctly) and goldenrod and false foxglove are tucked away preciously in the perfect places as though they were planted with thought to their different colors.

A word on crotalaria: It is supposed to be a deadly poisonous plant (one of Ethan's ex-coworkers was afraid to walk through a field of it in case the toxins "seeped into his skin"). Ethan's grandfather, who was a soil scientist, said it was planted as a nitrogen-fixing cover crop. It isn't native, but there are so many insects that are attracted to it, it must have naturalized.
We haven't really seen the poisonous side of it yet. The sheep and goats are eating a lot of it and they seem fine. I've noticed they intentionally graze on it even though they are out free-ranging on 40 acres with other tasty grasses and legumes available, but they just like it for some reason. I've decided to trust their tastes. I was really worried when they were eating black cherry leaves, but it's still their favorite plant and they have survived a whole year so far (they even eat the dried brown leaves off the ground).