Along the trail where I run, there's a stand of flowers in bloom, perfuming the track with its scent, and as beautiful as the smell is, I can't quite enjoy it, knowing that these flowers are building seeds for even more Canadian thistle. As I see these noxious weeds, I'm reminded of my own efforts to curtail the growth of thistle on my little farm, plants that used to stand higher than a person, thick enough to kill off everything else, some plants as big arounds as a wrist. But each summer I went in there with a sickle bar mower and knocked down those thistles, discovering afterwards that grass was simply waiting for a chance to come in. Where I couldn't go with the tractor and mower, I waded in with a scythe, sweeping away the weeds in the summer heat. It was one of the battles I made progress on, many of the weeds never coming back.
Now, I don't try to fight the thistle near the old egg factory. That's someone else's job these days.
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