Across the land they roll, animated weeds a following the wind. With a life of their own, the tumbleweed follows the path of the wind. Pausing briefly on a snag. To wait for the next change in the breezes.
Fences snag them, make a barrier. For miles the fence line stretches across the prairie, loaded with tumbling weeds. There are times the weight becomes enough to snap the wires and when it snows, more pressure is put on the fence.
During the dirty 30’s these weed barriers would collect blow dirt. Forming mounds on the fence line. The cattle could walk over the fence and wander over the other fences traveling with the wind at their back. Miles away the cattle would travel, walking up and over the fence.
There were heavy rains late this past summer and the pastures grew tumble weeds by the gross. Now with the dry weather of fall, the weeds have escaped to travel over the land to spread their seeds.
The Russian thistle came over with the German and Russian immigrants from the Ukraine region. They brought their wheat seed with them and mixed in the seeds were the seeds of the tumble weed. Today the German and Russian ancestors roam freely over the land, border to border, covering the prairie.
3 comments:
I LOVE this and I have always wanted to see and be right there to touch a tumbleweed. They are a memory to me when I was a little girl, I loved Westerns and of course the tumbleweeds were there in all of them. I liked reading the history of them too.
They say: "If these walls could talk..." How about if these weeds could talk? I know they've all got stories to tell.
Wow thats amazing about the dirt plieing up over the fences. When we get to the Salton Sea every winter I have to pick all the tumble weeds out of our landscaping and after every big wind storm. I can look so ugly on peoples fences in their yards. But they do look cool when they are tumbling along.
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