Thistle Update

   While we're waiting for an election update, I'll give you a thistles update. You might remember how fierce I was about decimating bull thistles. (See post on July 30, 2020.) I did a remarkably thorough job. I missed one patch of thistles and a few stray individuals, but on the whole I prevented millions of thistle seeds from finding ground.

    You might also remember that I carefully placed purple thistle heads in paper bags because, I said, "buds, even beheaded, can still burst into wind-borne seeds." I stored the sealed bags in the tool shed for burning later in my wood stove.

    Two months later, when I opened the tool shed door, I was shocked to find avalanches of thistle down pouring out of bags.

Mice had smelled the seeds and ripped open the bags, thinking God had sent them manna from heaven. Exposed to the air, thistle blossoms exploded. Invisible seeds borne on feathery wings came tumbling out of the bags like bubbles. They flowed over the shelves like waterfalls. The slightest movement of air from the opened door sent them rising like songs on a breeze. I watched in horror as they floated towards the open door, realizing that I was about to plant a million thistles in my own yard.

    It was a disheartening sight. I would somehow have to clean the mess up, but every movement sent a dozen thistle parachutes into the air. My son suggested I spray them with a very fine water spray, enough to tame the puffs but not enough to dampen the shed.

    That worked. Even a very slight spray made puffs of down sag and cling to each other. I put a snow shovel over the thistles on the floor of the shed, a large piece of cardboard over those the shovel didn't reach, knelt on the ground, and started spraying cascades of thistle down and scooping it into paper bags. I caught large handfuls and compressed them gently, catching with the other hand the floating escapees. 

    I learned to scoop gently, wary of a thorny thistle flower buried inside a thick pile of down. I worked slowly and carefully, clearing one surface before moving to another. I filled one paper bag after another with water-compressed thistle down. I gathered stray floaters and stuffed them, one at a time, into the bag.  I found middens of tiny husks of thistle seeds the mice had left. 

    In the end, I succeeded in cleaning the shed of thistle down, 

but the project isn't finished. I still have loose down in the collection bin, 

and it turns out not to be easy to stuff a bag of thistle down into the stove, whose door is about the same size as a paper bag full of thistle down. Inevitably pieces of down escape and have to be chased down in the house. 

    But once the thistles are in the stove, they make a very satisfying flame.