It is not the right time to attack the star thistle. It is late in the afternoon, going on 5 pm. It is also quite, shall we say, hot out. PG & E keeps calling and texting to warn of impending power outages due to this unprecedented heat and, incidentally, these power outages are NOT their fault this time around. The power outages that will certainly come in the fall? When fire danger peaks? Those will be on them. But not this time. They are not responsible, and they want you to know it.
Anyway. It is a pretty terrible time to be outside. I am learning, though, that I usually miss the “best” time for most things, so if I’m going to get anything done at all, I just have to do it whenever I can.
Also, I attacked this patch of star thistle a few days ago, (see my YouTube video here on my new and exciting YouTube channel. Because isn’t watching somebody trim blackberries and pull star thistle absolutely scintillating entertainment? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxl7sZbJPSc) and was quite pleased with myself because in one relatively short twenty minute session, I was able to SOLVE the problem. Except when I walked by this morning, with my dog and one of my best friends who also loves native plants and who is wildly supportive of my star thistle project, I saw that it was back. It had not been vanquished. It looked like it was flourishing and blooming and pretty much thriving.
I understood a little better how former President George W. Bush must have felt a few months after his “Mission Accomplished” Iraq speech. He said that in the battle of Iraq, the U.S and our allies had prevailed.
Not so much.
Did the star thistle not realize that I had come, I had fought, and I had conquered, all in one tidy twenty minute session?
It did not.
That is not what I wanted to see.
So, I am going outside now. I am going outside again with my paper grocery sack and my gloves and my garden hat. I will stand on my neighbor’s property and nod politely at the cars that drive past. I will wear two pairs of gloves this time because last time I attacked the star thistle, a few of the thorns attacked me back, right through my garden gloves, my flowered, pretty much falling apart garden gloves. I am bringing my phone, because I am trying to get 6,500 steps in, and I only have 5000 so far today.
It was not my plan to redo this star thistle patch so quickly.
But I went out. I went out, and I walked up, and I set my timer for 15 minutes, and I did what I could. Here’s a look at what I was able to gather:
Good news? I got my 6500 steps in.
Less good news? There was even more star thistle than I thought, growing up the hill a bit further. The worst news of all? Across the street, at the rental house, there is a veritable field of thistles blooming.
I’m not sure what to do about that. It looks like it might be more than I can handle.
But what if I could do five minutes a day?
I guess that’s my question. I guess that’s my hope, that five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes a day is enough to make a difference, to turn the tide, to change the world.
I don’t know. It might be just a silly dream. My prayer, though, is that I can just keep showing up. That I can put in the time, do the work, and be surprised by some kind of miracle.
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