Prickly But Beautiful Pest

There were just a few thistle bushes in my pasture last year. I adore the thistle flower, symbol of Scotland, favorite of bees, etc. Trouble is, once I let it bloom and let the wind take the thousands of seeds across the pasture, I got thousands of thistles. Guess what? The sheep and goats won't eat them. Even when they are locked in the barnyard with nothing but thistles to eat all day - forget it. Not even the goats who will eat many a thorny, nasty weed. I won't use poison or weed killer, I won't! The only thing to do is dig them out. With so many starting to bloom, and Randy available to help me today, we went to work on the thistles. It's cloudy and threatening to rain - perfect for working outside. We got a few hours in, and succeeded in getting a good thistle fire going, and the skies opened up. Luke had a ball running around in the downpours getting his clothes soaking wet - something he can't do in the desert of Las Vegas.