Birdsfoot Trefoil

Day 18 (7/10/09)
It was an interesting day on the bike trail. I hadn’t gone out last night like I had planned so I went out early this morning to rebuild “Boat Works”. I saw a white bus parked down by the road and figured it was the field workers I had seen out there yesterday. It appeared to be vacant so I went to work. Pretty soon I saw somebody watching out the window and thought about fleeing. At that point I was already discovered and figured time was of essence for rebuilding, so I continued. After I was done and was photographing it I saw the man get out of the bus and start walking toward me. At that point he had put on his hard hat and I realized he was with the railroad. He walked over and to my surprise asked if I wanted him to take a picture of me with the sculpture. We then chatted about what I was doing and he seemed genuinely interested. Then we talked a little about the process they went through to change the ties. He said that a crew would be coming through later to pick up the old ties and that they sorted them and sold the better ones for landscaping. He figured also, depending on who was doing the pickup, they might spare the ones that are already in sculptures. Maybe he will put in a good word for me. It never hurts to have someone in your corner. Today’s wild flower variety is the “birdsfoot trefoil”, a legume which is used in Missouri as a supplement to grass for cattle. Unlike other legumes it does not promote bloating, a good thing to know if you are going to eat it.