The New Era - All about Sweet Home since 1929

Here I was again, standing over a dead cow, in the middle of a pasture filled with tansy plants, listening to a rancher explain to me that cows never touch the stuff. As I stood there sharpening my necropsy knife, I thought about my long history with tansy.

My first recollection of awareness was at a family picnic at Tom and Kathryn Lawson’s ranch, on the top of Catching Creek Mountain, out of Myrtle Point. The year was 1950, and the plant was just then starting to show up on the high ridges of Coos County. We knew it killed cows and horses, but I do not recall seeing a loss. My oldest b...