OH mY God, The Weeds!

[SiouzQ.]

It happens every year at our house - I SWEAR to myself and the universe that I will NOT let the weeds get out of hand but yeah....it happens. At least this summer I have a good excuse due to the surgery.

It's been a good monsoon season so our usually brown high desert is lush with mega-weed growth. The yard was in pretty good shape before I went to St. Louis for the surgery, and my husband weed-wacked the barren part of our yard before he left for St. Louis, but we were both gone for a week and that is when the monsoons started hitting. When we got home I couldn't do anything for weeks and he was busy catching up with work.

Now that I have been feeling better and can do more, I've slowly started getting rid of the ragweed (some of it is waist-high). The biggest issue are the Goatheads - the most evil, vile plant ever, the gift that keeps on giving. The thorns get tracked everywhere, no matter if you leave your shoes by the door. Those little prickers will end up on the rugs, only to be stepped on during the night on a trip to the bathroom. I wrote a little blurb about Goatheads for my Facebook page yesterday:

Don't ever get bamboozled by these pretty sweet little yellow flowers. They grow and grow and grow, mocking those who couldn't pull them up earlier in the season. They are like the dreadlocks on the scalp of the earth. They wind their way from a central root and grow outward into 3 ft. long spokes that hug the ground and envelope and entwine themselves into all other weed growth nearby which results in a massive thicket that you try to pull up like rolling up a carpet. Their plump green sticker-fruits are the lice upon the scalp. By next season the green stickers will turn into hard shrunken brown evil motherf***kers that blend into the dirt and will stick to ANYTHING that trods upon them. Shoes, paws, tires...they get tracked into the house even when you remove your shoes at the door and they will find you when you stumble barefoot in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom.
Those are the soles of my flip-flops when I walked 5 ft on what I thought was a cleared path to take the photo of the the *pretty* little yellow flowers.

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[Alan]

Oh My Indeed! Where I grew up in S/E Missouri goatheads and sand burrs were as prolific in the yards sandy soil as cotton, corn and alfalfa were in the surrounding fields. Just seeing your pics activates unpleasant muscle memory in the soles of my feet.

[littlebittybobby]

okay-----this year has had a bumper crop of noxious vegetation, and along with that---mosquitos, ants, crickets, roaches and of course---rodents. Plus---more ants. Yup. Zurra is Central America, now. Steaming Lush Jungle. I have numerous 7' tall saplings that have grown in the last year, some of them are silver maple. Want it? Come get it. Plus--these giant weeds with berries that stain you if you happen to smash them. I've started to cut them all down. I just know that the tree-huggers from the desert states will moan and groan about how I'm destroying wildlife habitat, yada yada, but yeah---that's the idea, kids! Don't need no more wildlife. Nope. Every time I open a toolbox drawer, there is another mouses' nest. Yup. I cleaned out my Packard several months ago to get the nests(wasps & rats) out of it---and last week--there was another one. So yeah---it's a never-ending job. Also, the groundhoggs. They are taking over, and they are major diggers. I'm gonna trap n release(when they aren't raising young), but I hear occasional gunshots around here, which I reckon is neighbors solving their critter prollem. Yup. But yeah--anya you bleeding hearts wanna rescue a groundhog for mee? I'd appreciate ya. Hope that helps you some. Thankk mee.

[pinkytoe]

I am glad I don't have those particular weeds. I DO have something called bindweed which seems to grow a foot a day and strangle plants so I am always pulling it up. There is a Mormon family on my block and the mom said she makes her multiple kids pull ten times their age in weeds everyday. Math lesson or servitude? It gets it done anyway.

[iris lilies]

I am glad I don't have those particular weeds. I DO have something called bindweed which seems to grow a foot a day and strangle plants so I am always pulling it up. There is a Mormon family on my block and the mom said she makes her multiple kids pull ten times their age in weeds everyday. Math lesson or servitude? It gets it done anyway.
Bind weed is awful. In my community garden and the city, it was my worst weed.

here in Hermann I seldom see it

[SiouzQ.]

And we have a pack rat nest in the cactus garden! It's really quite somethiung to behold - they build it like a fortress and use sections of cholla and cholla thorns to guard the two entrances/exits. One entrance hole has a bunch of sticks arranged to guard the hole. It would be interesting to see how they have decorated the nest underground. They have been know to collect items and arrange them by color.

Our rat traps haven't worked so far (smart buggers) so the other day K. pulled the garden hose over and started flushing the nest out. He saw one of them scatter away.

Ugh, if it's not pack rats, it's the damn rock squirrels. They have really taken over around here. That's why we've been unable to grow our sunflowers anymore - no matter how I try to protect the seedlings as they grow, they get munched on.

[iris lilies]

Are rock squirrels the same as ground squirrels? They are cute! While i despise the tree squirrels because they are so numerous and destructive, there are only occasional sightings here if ground squirrels. a few years ago one got into the house here in Hermann. I left the front door open and it scurried out at some point.

[SiouzQ.]

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Finally getting around to working on the fire pit area, which has HUNDREDS upon HUNDREDS of dried up evil goathead stickers. For the price of a pair of old flip-flops and a little bit of exercise, I spent the morning raking and walking in circles around the fire pit, picking up hundreds of goat head seeds on the soles of my shoes. Did I look ridiculous? Probably yes. Did I care? Absolutely not. The struggle with goat heads is REAL!