Long about now, I get a little frenzied, as I know that the “thistle season” is drawing to a close. To be specific, as we slouch toward August, our chance to pull invasive thistle begins to wane, as it begins to go to seed and pulling can lead to seed dispersal, which we definitely don’t want. By now the Italian thistle has long since dried out, making it a dubious target, although potentially still fair game if you’re careful. But by this time our focus has shifted to the Yellow Star thistle (YST), which is blooming, and will continue into August. And there is still plenty to get, although on the main part of both the Overlook and Montini properties we are looking pretty good.

The place that isn’t so great for YST is along Norrbom Road — specifically, the water tank properties. That is where I’ve been focusing my efforts in recent weeks. Primarily, I’ve worked on two goals:

1. Reducing the physical extent (drawing in the boundaries), and
2. Reducing the seed load (pulling the large, most productive plants that are most likely to spread seed).

I’ve essentially cleared it along the road from the Overlook parking lot turnoff to the Rattlesnake Cutoff crossing, but north of there still needs a lot of work. This is essentially from the road to the fence. Beyond the fence is another story. There is still so much left to do there. I’m thinking of organizing a workday, which if you know me you know how desperate I’ve become. Organizing an event is one of my least favorite things to do.

A lot of what I’ve been pulling has been very small (see the picture). I know it’s because any thistle coming in this late in the season has a physical awareness that it needs to bloom right away, and not try to grow big. Nonetheless, I can’t help thinking about the Nazis, sending in their youth in a last gasp of trying to save the Third Reich from inevitable defeat. I like to think that the defeat of invasive thistle on these two properties is just as certain. The thing is, it isn’t certain until it is, and we are still a long way away from that.