Day 4: Why are these scratchy weeds trying to kill me?

Another toasty day in the Cisco Desert, with FIVE sites recorded!  Two of them were “historic can” scatters and, in my opinion, should be plowed under (just kidding, even cans need someone to love them).  No stone tools or anything archaeologically romantic, but we added to the site total for the project, and managed to still walk about 12 miles. 

Today we walked one mile transects, back and forth, over an area that was devoured by the Russian thistle epidemic from last year.  Russian thistle?  Also known as “tumbleweed” it grows everywhere, possesses thousands of evil, very resilient thorns, and will fill up (to the brim) any arroyo or wash in it’s path.  

We had three of these arroyos to cross, every transect up and then back again.  When in the process of walking a transect, one doesn’t really have the luxury of taking time to find a clear path across.  If a clear route over the river of thistle doesn’t present itself directly in front of you, you sort of hold your breath and plunge in, hoping it isn’t a very deep arroyo, or that there isn’t a nest of snakes, or a tangle of barbed wire, or a dead body somewhere under there…

Last session I successfully got myself down one side, and across, only to lose my footing and fall sideways into the mass of thorns and twigs.  I had no idea you could swim in tumbleweeds.  Not fun, but doable.  

Once you’ve navigated through the thistle-wall, you stop and spend several minutes picking the thorns out of your socks, shirt, pants, underwear, backpack straps and back panel, ears, etc.

Really, by the time you go through all of that, it would have been faster to walk the quarter mile off of your transect line to the clear spot in the arroyo, cross over, then rejoin the transect.  Just sayin’…

Where did this Russian thistle come from and why does it want to hurt you?  According to DesertUSA.org’s website, the thing came here in the 1870′s.  Native to the steppes of the Ural Mountains in Russia (thus the name) it was accidentally introduced to the US by Russian immigrants living in South Dakota.  They wanted to grow flax in their new homeland, imported a shipment of flax seed, tainted with Russian thistle, and the rest is history.  The stuff was all the way to the Pacific Coast by 1900.  

Regardless of how/when it arrived here, it’s here and isn’t leaving anytime soon.  Time to invest in some sturdy gaiters and a machete, if I want to continue with this line of work. And, I do.