The wind howled last weekend. And when the fall wind howls in South Dakota...
... the annual Migration of the Tumbleweeds begins.
These are the husks of the
koscia plant, which grows everywhere here. In the fall, the big round plants dry up, and the first big wind breaks them free, and then they roll...
...into fencelines, and across fields, scattering their seeds (up to 10,000 per plant) everywhere. It's fascinating to watch, the weeds roll and bounce as though they were stately and silent alien invaders, which I suppose they are.
That of course led me here:
You can thank me for the ear worm later. Side note: I did not realize that Roy Rogers was a founding member of the Sons of the Pioneers until I started looking around YouTube for a clip.
Fall also means that the tomatoes, which were few and small this year for everyone, are done.
The Brussels Sprouts are still doing okay though. We started these from seed, and maybe, if we're lucky and the bugs die off, we might actually get a serving before snow flies.
Our leaves are gone, but the prairie is beautiful, even when it's brown.
3 comments:
The prairie is indeed so beautiful. Thank you for sharing these pictures, Kathleen. In eastern Saskatchewan we had only the odd tumbleweed but the rest of it sure looks familiar. Especially the bugs on the brassicas, sadly!
Thank heavens for Brussels sprouts! I didn't even bother with tomatoes this year, after two years of failure. I have nice herbs and that is about it.
Roy Rogers rocks!
Growing up in New England I'd never seen a tumble weed but new that song by heart! When I was about 17 I went to the South West for a Unitarian conference....I spied my first tumble weed and ran over and picked it up with glee.....sadly it wasn't the soft fluffy thing of my dreams...
anne
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