Hawk and I

ProfessorRoush set out this morning to face a dreaded chore;  bush-hogging the pastures nearest the house (on this side of the draw where it's semi-safe to drive a tractor).  I only do it once yearly for the primary purpose of mowing down noxious weeds on the prairie; foremost among which are the thistles, with the Wavy-Leaf Thistle, Cirsium undulatum, most common here (upper right).  I grew up mowing bull thistles on the home farm in Indiana and, as I've mentioned before, my maternal grandfather always said to mow them on June 21st to control them.   I'm a little late this year, but years of observation has convinced me that the purpose of the date is to mow them near bloom and before these biennials set seed and I'm still within that window.

I dread the annual pasture-mowing for a number of reasons.  First, I don't trust my inherited tractor on the Flint Hills; it's top-heavy and too powerful for its weight, with a tendency to want to jump as you let off the clutch.  I'm extra-darned careful with it and don't trust it for an instant.  Second, it's normally hot and miserable out there this time of year and mowing takes a full afternoon.  Third, I don't want to mow because it alters the prairie ecology, cutting down forbs before they bloom (particularly stealing milkweeds from the migrating monarchs).  But its a necessity to control the sumac and thistles.

This year, however, I had a close observer the whole time, watching the every move of the loud green machine and tired primate riding it.  Watching me, literally, like a hawk.  To be specific, watching me like a red-tailed hawk, hoping, I'm sure, that I would flush out dinner in the form of a nice prairie mouse or rabbit.

I first spotted it atop my barn gate about 1/2 hour after I started mowing.  Since I always have an iPhone handy, I stopped and opened the camera app, only to be immediately disappointed as I zoomed in and it began to fly away ( 2nd photo, left).

Thankfully, it came back, again and again, first on the same gate as seen in the 3rd paragraph (I'll leave you to decipher the meaning of the Greek language "Molon Labe" sign), then on a fence post (4th paragraph, on the left), and then on a native Mulberry tree (here, right), always nearby as I went round and round the pasture.  I apologize for the pictures; I wish they were clearer, but alas, the iPhone was all I had available, placed at full zoom, and held as still as I could on a vibrating, roaring tractor.  And the stark, full sunlight in a cloudless July prairie sky also isn't good "photo-quality" lighting.

I could only pray to see it catch something, and so Hawk and I were both excited as it swooped down on something in the tall grass next to a just mowed area (5th paragraph, right).  I hadn't seen anything bounding into the tall grass, so I was hoping to see Hawk rise up with a snake, but Hawk, clearly disgusted by a miss, looked back at me as if it was blaming me for its lack of success.  I'm sorry, Hawk.

While still on the ground, it did give me this last profile shot, however, the best glimpse yet of the red-tail feathers of its name.  And then it took off again, returning to its vigil, a sweeping shadow passing back and forth over me for the duration of my mowing, hunting prey, I surmise, in each pass.  Hawks will be hawks and I appreciate my moments spent with this one.

Thistle Excite You

'Kaveri'

ProfessorRoush would have a more witty and winsome post this morning, but the evening stroll last night with Bella left him speechless at the beauty.  We had a brief rain this morning and, little as it was, the flowers were all the happier because of it.   We needed the rain; even the buffalograss was about ready to call it quits.  Besides, I'm tired from swinging steel (I'll explain at the bottom).  Now I'll shut up and let you enjoy:









This 'Kaveri' lily, an Oriental-Asiatic cross I've had in the garden for 5 years.  She's tough, about 3 foot tall, and blooms her head off.   I've got several clumps and comes back year after year.  She just started to bloom, a little later than the Asiatics, a little earlier than the Oriental and Orientpet lilies. 

'Spider Man' daylily

And here, the first bloom of a new daylily for me, Hemerocallis 'Spider Man'.  This Award of Merit winner has 7 inch blooms of the brightest, most soul-quenching red you would ever want in your garden.  I'm pleased this spider-type daylily has joined mine.













These perennial sweet peas have never climbed and covered this makeshift trellis as I envisioned for them, but they bloom a nice happy shade of pink in the down season between the first bloom of the roses and the blitzkrieg of the daylilies.












I didn't plan this combination of daylily and 'Tiger Eye's sumac, but the momma sumac seven feet away suckered over next to the daylily and embraced it.  This is one of those fortuitous moments in a gardener's life that won't ever repeat, because next year this baby sumac will be too big to allow it to stay here.











Another great combination provided by the wiles of fate, this grouping of orange Asclepias tuberosa, yellow-orange Black-Eyed Susan, and the young blood-red Hollyhock all self-seeded themselves to this spot; two natives and a cultivated garden escapee.  The only thing I planted in this picture was the low-growing yellow barberry, 'Gold Nugget' which has been there for years.

Wavy-Leaf thistle

So, why am I tired?  Well, that's the fault of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  No stop it, that's not what I mean.  Yesterday, she photographed this Wavy-Leaf Thistle, Cirsium undulatum (at least that's what I think it is), and she posted it on Facebook.  I'd been eyeing the thistles in the surrounding pasture, knowing that they were close but hoping they would wait a week to start blooming.  But no, this one had to start early, and Mrs. ProfessorRoush had to post it on Facebook right away, thus providing photographic evidence for the county authorities that I was allowing a noxious weed to populate the prairie.  I discovered late in the day that she had literally forced my hand and so I spent an hour last night swinging a machete and chopping off thistles, in the wet grass no less.  Thistles are one flower I just can't tolerate proliferating in my prairie, any more than I can abide a wife serving as an unwitting spy for the county.

Thistleocide

You know, and I know, that I've been working hard to preserve the native forbs by allowing vast areas of my prairie lawn to go unmown this summer.  Actually, my actions might be better described as "hardly working", since it takes more effort to mow than to let the prairie grow.  And I've been showing off my native wildflowers in various posts, like here, and here.

Regarding those native wildflowers, however, I draw the line at allowing the thistles to grow unchecked in the yard.  The spiky little gray-green creature at the  right is Wavy-Leaf Thistle (Cirsium undulatum), a less-than-lovable member of the Asteraceae (or Sunflower) family.   It is found throughout Kansas in dry prairies, disturbed areas, and over-grazed pastures.  Hmmm, "over-grazed pastures" is also a good description for a prairie mowed every two weeks or so for several years, isn't it?  Wavy-Leaf Thistle is not the only thistle I've found in the area; Bull Thistle or Cirsium vulgare is also found here, but the latter is not native and is listed as a noxious weed.  Wavy-Leaf Thistle is, however, the most prevalent thistle in my yard, and even if Native Americans did view it as a food source, I do not.

So, I'm dispatching them with a machete wherever they crop up.  Yes, I am a serial thistle killer.  There's just something so satisfying about swinging that big knife blade at my feet and managing to lop off a thistle at the base while avoiding my shins and toes.  It's almost a primeval satisfaction, born out of man's necessity to make his immediate environment more comfortable.  And I also know a secret about cutting thistles, a secret born of experience and farm lore, that I'll pass on to you.

Thistle-cutting, in my case, simply brings back memories of childhood.  I spent a fair portion of my youth on the seat of an old Massey-Ferguson 135 tractor with a "bush-hog" attached to the power takeoff.  Because controlling them caused me sunburn and sweat, thistles and ironweed were my childhood enemies, and I took great pleasure in chopping them down to size several times a summer.  I remember distinctly a five acre section of our cow pasture that had become overgrown with Bull Thistle to the point where neither people nor cows could walk it unscathed.  My paternal grandfather, a farmer from the time of horse-draw plows, related to my father that they should be cut down every year on June 21st, so for several years on the 21st of June, I'd be found mowing that pasture, rain or shine, usually in the boiling sun.  And lo and behold, the thistles declined over about five years until nary a one could be found.

Even back then, young but with an interest in science and nature, I recognized that the real secret was that on or around June 21st every year, the thistles were open in flower but none had yet gone to seed.  And there was not enough time left in the hot summer for a 3-4 foot tall thistle to grow back up and flower and seed again.  So the real trick was simply keeping these behemoths from procreating until they dwindled, an agricultural and military technique that has worked on many different native species time and again over the centuries.


So, I apologize to all the native plant purists, but my ingrained training will not allow me to let the thistles be thistles.  I'm also, of course, preempting Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who might have reluctantly consented to allow a little Echinacea and Black-Eyed Susans to proliferate, but who might become more adamant about removing the thistles.  To those of you who want to join the anti-thistle brigade, take my grandfather's advice and cut them to the ground in late June or early July (or exactly on June 21st to honor his memory with me).  Your pastures may not be purely native, but your bare legs will thank you for it, nonetheless.