Re-thinking garlic mustard for the cows....

Hmmm..... Differing opinions on the internet about garlic mustard.  I had just the slightest bit of doubt as the cows munched on what I pulled this morning, so I had to check it out. Most sources point out how invasive it is, and leave it at that.  Others promote wide-spread pulling of the weed and then burning it AND the stubble to eliminate it. Some sources say that it contains cyanide, similar to the amount in peach pits or apple seeds.  Other sites say that cattle have been poisoned by eating mustard stubble (although that wasn't clear if it was speaking about garlic mustard, the weed, or a different species of mustard).  Some places say that the oils in mustard are a poison to cattle, but I'm not sure what this classifies as:  garlic, mustard, both, or just a weed. One other site suggested cows having abortions because of the garlic/onion family of plants, or the mustard/brassica family of plants.  Still not sure that garlic mustard fits any of those possibilities. No more for Bess and Lou until I know for sure, just to be safe.  I'm not panicking, just making sure before I give them any more.  Compared to the vast quantity of hay and grass that they eat every day, even the armload of garlic mustard that I gave them is just a drop in the bucket, so to speak.  Bessie even turned away from the weeds to the freshly opened bale of hay.  I would have thought that they'd know better than to eat it if it was poisonous in some way, but then.....these are also the cows who would have eaten an entire store-room of grain if we had one, and then promptly died.  (If any of the farming experts know whether garlic mustard is a real threat or not, I'd be interested to know what you have to say on that subject.....) Sigh.  Too bad we don't have goats or hogs.....sounds like they would be able to eat anything. I DID get a lot of gardening done, despite the cold and drizzle.  Once I got started, the garlic mustard was ripped out of one "garden" (an old garden, needing lots of work to reclaim it), and that revealed what else needed to be done.  This particular area is under a beautiful reddish maple tree by the patio.  There are lily-of-the-valley, hostas, and trillium under there, when the weeds are cleared away.  There is a land-scaping fabric barrier to keep weeds from growing, but....it's been so long since it was put down that the soil on TOP of the landscape fabric is wonderfully dark and fertile and a couple of inches thick.  There were literally hundreds of maple seedlings, some of them from last year's seed, most of them from other years.  Some pulled out nicely, because their roots couldn't go down too deeply.  The others I just clipped with the garden shears. There was buckthorn, too big to pull out so it got cut as close to the ground as possible, and there were burning-bush seedlings, choke-cherry seedlings, thistles..... I got about half of that garden weeded and looking nice before my hands were too cold and cramped to do any more.  I will move some bleeding-heart and maybe some of my other favorite shade-plants from Palatine to add to that nice and restful garden, now that I can see what I have to work with.  It could be a nice place for a small raised-bed garden for shade-loving plants, too, since there's plenty of room. I uncovered what used to be the garden border, about 3 feet inside where the creeping ground-cover is now.  So, I unearthed the nice fieldstones which were almost completely buried under the fresh dirt, and set up a new border where I want it to be.  Other fieldstones which were anchoring an unusable electric cord and garden lights are now forming the new edge of the gravel patio.  One day that patio needs some serious work.  You can't walk barefoot on it, because the gravel is so sharp!  There are enough antique bricks lying around the property in stacks and/or piles that it would be really attractive to have a patio made up of those old bricks.  Work for another day (make that.....for another YEAR!!!) but not today. As for the carpal tunnel syndrome that I wrote about way back in January.....that is definitely aggravated by all that I did this morning.  Milking the cows isn't the problem, because it is worse now than when I was still milking Bessie.  That's what I suspected before, but there was no way to be sure until the movement of milking a cow was out of the equation.  Pulling weeds.....now THAT's a problem.  My hands go numb after all that repetitive motion, using the same small-scale muscles again and again for hours at a time.  Moving heavy rocks--results in strained wrists, sore hands, and waking up the next morning with the almost unbearable tingling sensation in whichever arm I've been sleeping on. Typing....in addition to pulling weeds or spreading mulch, typing can be a problem if I do it for too long. Walking the back acre with the broadcast spreader.....pinching the lever on the handle for extended periods of time results in a strained wrist and the numb feeling in my hands.  Same with mowing the grass--pinching down on the lever under the handle is a problem. But thankfully, milking Bessie just aggravated it and didn't cause it, and when the other activities were at a minimum during February and early March, there was no problem. I have the wrist brace on my right wrist, which has been the worst with all the weeding and gardening this spring, and it is helping.  I shouldn't have done so much this morning, but how can you stop when you're on a roll and can see so much progress?!!! Have a great weekend, everyone.  Thanks, Corey, for the tips about how to prepare that garlic mustard if we decide to try it.  There was one website which urged everyone to "eat garlic mustard to celebrate earth day" and then gave several recipes for how to prepare it. ;) Laura.