Piles and piles of weeds...

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Hairy panic is a relatively new weed to the area - apparently 10 years ago it was no where to be found.  Each year it's spread slowly further & further making more & more piles of the seed pods (aka tumble weed section) wherever it can find a spare corner. Well fast forward to this year with it's incredibly wet summer and it is everywhere.  It seems you only just clean it all up & it's back again - tumbling this way & that with the wind.  Not seeming to have a destination in mind, but rather wildly rolling & piling as if in a panic of it's own doing.  

Over this last week the hairy panic epidemic has reached it's peak (well at least I hope it's peak) with the summer weeds coming to maturity.  This is the pile of the stuff on the western side of the house.....


As you can see it's far above our heads (Ellie is jumping - thus the terrible quality of the photo-sorry ).  It has covered half way up the windows & is quietly sitting here waiting for the wind to change direction so it can spread to another corner - slowly dropping it's many seed wherever it turns.

With it's effective seed distribution system  I'm guessing it's going to be around for years to come - at least next year we plan on spraying it out while it is still immature (assuming they have a spray for it which won't effect our summer pastures - can you tell I leave that type of thing up to Dave :) ).  However unless the whole of eastern Australia does the same thing I'm thinking we'll have troubles for a while yet.   At least the chickens enjoy eating the seeds (although this really means they are dropping fertiliser with the seeds everywhere they go)! This is just another experience of our farming life - which we are so thankful to be living!

*************************
Although sometimes the weed piles seem too large to move, to difficult to conquer - we need not be discouraged.  One of my favourite passages is:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Cor 12:9 (NIV)
Such powerful words to remember through those difficult times!


Blessings

****** I had posted this on Thursday, but it has disappeared & so I'm re posting it Sat - has anyone else had this problem with blogger lately?**************

8 comments:

Farmgirl Cyn said...

Oh, my word! That is some mighty invasive stuff you have there. hairy Panic...what a fitting name....

Amanda said...

At least your looking to the bright side of things;)

Farmgirl Cyn said...

My last post disappeared too, but came back the next day, albeit w/o the comments. I commented on your hairy crazy weeds when you 1st posted! I have never seen anything like this....It looks like a plague of biblical proportions!

Kath said...

Thats a task that will take the entire community to fight against together.
We have gophers out in the WY hayfields. But if all dont treat the problem they just move onto other fields. And then move back over to ours again. :(
When we bought the land there were masses of tumbleweeds too but that has lessen alot as we cut our dry land once a year. Other farmers graze their fields over the winter so let the dry land surrounding the irrigated land grow thick and tall.
Always interesting to learn about other farming issues/practices around the country and world.
Unlike my hubs I think tumbleweeds are artsy and cool!! He thinks the same thing of those beautiful sunflowers that grow wild(aka weeds to him). lol

Kimmie said...

problems with blogger...yes...comments have gone missing...and just annoying stuff.

the weed looks so dainty and pretty. (sorry)...can you turn it into something...like weaving with it? (they do alot of this in Ethiopia). Simenesh showed us how they take a piece of grass and fashion a one-day-only toothbrush out of it. Perhaps you could think of some clever way to make use of it? (pray, Maybe the Holy Spirit has some ideas!)

Kimmie
mama to 8
one homemade and 7 adopted

aunty sel said...

HI Narn,
Wow, that sure is a lot of hairy panic!! It must look really surreal driving around there at the moment, do you feel like you are floating in clouds.
Have a happy day,
much luv,
sel

Smilie girl said...

Wow, that is some amazingly weird weed. it definitely suits its name. Hope everyone bands together to make a difference.

Catherine said...

This is kind of how I feel when I look at my legs. Hairy panic! Winter legs....heheheh. xx

Blog Widget by LinkWithin