A Civic Service Announcement, Followed By Considerable Irony

I go out walking in my neighborhood.  Whilst doing this,  I encounter one of the more dangerous plants in Illinois.  I don't mean poison ivy.

The plant with the reddish stems is known as pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)  

Don't those berries look just like grapes or blueberries? It's often mistaken for blueberries by children.  It's fairly common in suburban neighborhoods, too.  A cluster can kill an adult, and children have been severely poisoned by eating a few.  The boiled new leaves of the plant are known as poke salad, and are eaten by rural Southerners.  If not boiled, they would be poisonous and inedible.  I'm really trying to avoid making derogatory comments about the culinary habits of rural Southerners, but this is essentially hick fugu, unnecessary to eat and dangerous to do so.

Further along, I spotted these Verbena bonariensis with several butterflies.

I tried to find more wildlife, but it didn't happen.  Meanwhile, my brother went outside and mowed around our house.  In the shed, he found a northern black widow spider, and under our pine trees he found a garter snake.  Both were found around our house for the first time.  I find the irony of this just plain sickening.