All names (except one) have been changed.

Today I asked Lila and Phil — because I ask everyone — about their star thistle eradication plan, and I remember quite clearly their declaration a few years ago, when I was still green behind the ears, that through their dogged efforts, they had managed to remove yellow star thistle from their property.  I held this in mind as cherished evidence that it could be done, that the war is worth waging, and through effort and persistence, it could be won.  

And it is a war — in this long, arduous campaign, I feel outgunned.  

Enough with the war language, and a switch to the vaguely religious — this was Lila’s reply:

Phil and I believe Star Thistle is a plague created to afflict and torment man and woman. [Phil] has spent hours pulling the nasty stuff out by the roots and it still returns. I have heard many weeds can survive in the ground for 7 years or more.  What a joyful thought, YUCK!!!

If we can keep it from dropping seeds hopefully eradication will occur in a few years as long as some kind of animal doesn’t drop seeds from its fur as it crosses the land, and [as long as] the wind doesn’t blow. 

It is a drought tolerant plant and got a major foothold a few years ago when it was so very dry.  Sorry for the unhappy news. We can all continue to do our best and pray for it to gradually diminish…We can think of each other as we pull, cut, and try to think happy thoughts.

Sometimes yellow star thistle is the first thing I think of when I open my eyes in the morning.

It invades my dreams.  It really is a blight upon the land.  

Everyone, everyone has a story, a strategy, a lament.  I’ve taken to asking, “what is your star thistle strategy?”

“I water it until the ground gets soft, and then go nuts pulling it up!”  ~~Mt. Aukum postal worker

“I pull it out by the roots before it flowers.”  ~~Jerry Bolland, DC

“Have you tried covering the plants with black plastic and letting the sun cook it until it’s dead? That’s what I’m trying this year.”  ~~Sydney, Mt. Aukum Beekeeper

“You can clip the seed heads, the little yellow flower surrounded by spikes.  I know it’s rough, hard work, but you will stop the seed from spreading.”  ~~Edie Midas

“Bahama sheep.”  ~~Alberto Bocci

I saw one woman online with a shop vac and a long, long extension cord, vacuuming up tiny seeds that had fallen.

Yellow star thistle is poisonous to horses, and fatal. There is no known treatment.

Several University of California Extension programs have produced videos of earnest, educated, hard-working land managers — mostly women — standing in fields of yellow star thistle, or in front of PowerPoint slides in a cavernous, fluorescent-lit room, explaining the problem yellow star thistle has become in the western states.   

It is a plague created to afflict and torment man and woman

The work of eradication is often framed as good citizenship, and in being a good neighbor.  

“We can think of each other as we pull…”

When I went to learn to extract honey with the El Dorado Beekeepers, II overheard someone say, “Well, thank god the yellow star thistle is blooming…otherwise, the bees wouldn’t have anything to eat.” 

I had forgotten that bee keepers generally welcome yellow star thistle, and Pablo Mimosa, the self-proclaimed Chicano Bee Master of the North, positively celebrates the yellow star thistle bloom in July and August…yet I can’t help but believe that these generous thoughts come more easily when the star thistle plants are OUT THERE, on someone else’s property.

As I pull, clip, strangle, poison with vinegar and salt, and I find myself ruminating on how fucking persistent this plant is, how insidious, how toxic, how harmful, how quickly it spreads, how strong it is, I suddenly find myself thinking about the Trump years.  

The parallels are uncanny. 

They think that yellow star thistle has been here in California since about the 1850s, and it’s just in recent years — the last few decades, perhaps — that it has really dug in and flourished, spreading throughout the western states.  Its foothold is deeply established, and is now so entrenched that it is impossible to imagine it ever really being gone.  We may win back a few fields, a few ranches, a few acres, but an earth where yellow star thistle is not a major problem does not exist.

One of the earnest University of California Extension program land managers, Brenda Stanchon, called yellow star thistle “one of the worst economic and ecological problems in California”, and as she is saying this, surrounded by acres of star thistle, cars are zipping by on the freeway just beyond.  Do the people in those cars realize that they are driving past one of the worst economic and ecological problems in California? I never knew. I would have never guessed.

As with the Trump administration, it is overwhelming, really.

I can only do my best.  

I can only continue to educate myself.

I can only attend to my yellow star thistle.

I can only attend to my yellow star thistle in ways that does not harm other plants and animals.

I can never hope to get it all.  

I can not go after it every day.

There is no future that does not have yellow star thistle in it.

Fighting back is simply a part of my life.

I will continue to water and pull, to clip, and to cook with heavy duty black plastic trash bags anchored down with landscape staples, and when the timing is right, I will mow.  

In the hot summer mornings, I will pull on long sleeves and thick black, puncture-proof gloves, step into my boots, pull a bandana over my face, put on protective eyewear, cover my hair, and string-cut the little fuckers (with flower-heads clipped so as not to fling seed) down to the bare ground.

I can fight back with buckwheat.  Buckwheat will compete with star thistle in the spring, shade it and crowd it out, and will feed the soil when mowed down and allowed to decompose.

I can fight back with goats. A goat will continue to eat star thistle, even when the dangerous spiny thorns growing at a good dog’s eye-level are sticking out, surrounding the flower, protecting the seed, and will poop out seeds that are no longer viable.  Goats ain’t cheap, definitely out of my price range, but they seem to be the the answer.

The Yellow Star Thistle/Trump years: a plague, a blight, a scourge — yet we find ways to fight back. We have allies. And when we push back, we become allies.