When I lived near Boulder (CO), my office was at 401 Discovery Drive and overlooked, among other things, a field owned by the University of Colorado - Boulder, home of Ward Churchill.
The field began filling up with thistle. Thistle was doubly bad for the Boulderistas because, not only is it an aggressive weed, it was an invasive noxious species (i.e., a species of undocumented immigrant flora disliked by eek!ophiles).
So, predictably, the committees and commissions of the University, after long and learned deliberations and disputations, contracted for the services of a doughty band of goats to come in and return the eek!ology of the field to Pleistocene perfection.
The goats came, they saw, they munched, and they wandered about the streets of the University of Colorado Research Park nibbling on the carefully tended, artfully arranged, xeriscaped landscaping. Naturally, the ideological descendants of John Muir had forgotten that domestic goats require fenced fields.
Well, like the Who, the Muiraloons weren't going to get fooled again. So they put up extremely attractive blaze orange (so stoned cyclists would not kill themselves sweating and groaning to work in the early morning) temporary fencing (presumably made of Free Trade plastic, synthesized from organically drilled, pesticide-free petrochemicals). Now the goats could munch and meander in peace without endangering carefully designed eco-compatible displays, or being endangered by cannabis-intoxicated denizens of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, a major source of hot air for global warming).
Unfortunately, the goats seemed to prefer buttercups and other charming wildflowers to the stalwart Scottish invaders. In fact, they preferred the mild-mannered native American plants so much they chewed and mangled them down to the very nubs. So, in fairly short order, the Learned Eek!ologists turned the field into a bald and muddy haven for the rapacious reproduction of one of nature's most fecund carpetbaggers.
Yup, people have funny ideas about goats. Sure, they'll eat "anything", but they aren't idiots - they go for the good stuff first, and save the thistles for last. They make lousy lawnmowers, that picture is about what I expect from an area grazed by goats - blasted and dead. Plus, goats can climb, which makes them practically impossible to keep penned up, so they are always annoying the neighbors.
The thing is, there is an easy solution to the thistles, and it's even cheap: hire some 10-year-old boys for a few bucks an hour, hand them spades, and have them go out and cut off all the thistles about 2 inches underground. Sure, the thistles will eventually grow back, but not for quite some time. And a boy can clear an acre in about an hour (at least, that's how long it took me to clear thistles out of the pasture when I was a kid).
Or, somebody can go out with a pump sprayer and some Roundup. That works well too, but unless you do it yourself it actually costs more because you have to hire adults (people get funny about sending kids out with herbicides).
3 comments:
Had to chuckle.
When I lived near Boulder (CO), my office was at 401 Discovery Drive and overlooked, among other things, a field owned by the University of Colorado - Boulder, home of Ward Churchill.
The field began filling up with thistle. Thistle was doubly bad for the Boulderistas because, not only is it an aggressive weed, it was an invasive noxious species (i.e., a species of undocumented immigrant flora disliked by eek!ophiles).
So, predictably, the committees and commissions of the University, after long and learned deliberations and disputations, contracted for the services of a doughty band of goats to come in and return the eek!ology of the field to Pleistocene perfection.
The goats came, they saw, they munched, and they wandered about the streets of the University of Colorado Research Park nibbling on the carefully tended, artfully arranged, xeriscaped landscaping. Naturally, the ideological descendants of John Muir had forgotten that domestic goats require fenced fields.
Well, like the Who, the Muiraloons weren't going to get fooled again. So they put up extremely attractive blaze orange (so stoned cyclists would not kill themselves sweating and groaning to work in the early morning) temporary fencing (presumably made of Free Trade plastic, synthesized from organically drilled, pesticide-free petrochemicals). Now the goats could munch and meander in peace without endangering carefully designed eco-compatible displays, or being endangered by cannabis-intoxicated denizens of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, a major source of hot air for global warming).
Unfortunately, the goats seemed to prefer buttercups and other charming wildflowers to the stalwart Scottish invaders. In fact, they preferred the mild-mannered native American plants so much they chewed and mangled them down to the very nubs. So, in fairly short order, the Learned Eek!ologists turned the field into a bald and muddy haven for the rapacious reproduction of one of nature's most fecund carpetbaggers.
I think they finally ended up using Roundup.
Yup, people have funny ideas about goats. Sure, they'll eat "anything", but they aren't idiots - they go for the good stuff first, and save the thistles for last. They make lousy lawnmowers, that picture is about what I expect from an area grazed by goats - blasted and dead. Plus, goats can climb, which makes them practically impossible to keep penned up, so they are always annoying the neighbors.
The thing is, there is an easy solution to the thistles, and it's even cheap: hire some 10-year-old boys for a few bucks an hour, hand them spades, and have them go out and cut off all the thistles about 2 inches underground. Sure, the thistles will eventually grow back, but not for quite some time. And a boy can clear an acre in about an hour (at least, that's how long it took me to clear thistles out of the pasture when I was a kid).
Or, somebody can go out with a pump sprayer and some Roundup. That works well too, but unless you do it yourself it actually costs more because you have to hire adults (people get funny about sending kids out with herbicides).
Yes, but what about hiring kids to eat the thistles?
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