Nodding Thistle | Life on a Colorado Farm

To some working on the land is lonely. Only you and the sky and the earth. But to me (and to Terry) it isn’t lonely.

There are plants who need our care and plants

we despair of (the nodding thistle, lovely but a huge nuisance).

Light floods the air and heat shimmers up off the land. Just to glace upon the brilliance is to think there is nothing but silence there. But it isn’t true…the song birds fill the air with music and bugs (the good bugs and the not-so-good bugs).

The new momma deer and her brand new little fawn scamper close to us, not afraid. They are many generations of deer, who have lived here safe. We feed them so they stay out of the crops. They do their part and eat at the pastures.

The thought always runs in the back of the mind…’my this is pretty. I feel so tremendously blessed’…all the while acknowledging the inadequacy of the word blessed.

Your friend on a western Colorado Farm

Linda

We have many, many weed here…some are just a pain, but others are really horrid. The invasive species are the worst….nothing likes to eat them, they sterilize the soil so only ‘they’ can grow, and (usually) they are ugly –Russian Knapp Weed, Canada Thistle are examples.

Randomly there is a weed that is just downright beautiful-but still a weed and still an invasive weed. I chop them down the second I see them start to form. Sometimes I miss one or so, before you know it…there they are.