How I Became a Guerrilla Soldier in the War on Russian Thistle

There is a rocky sandstone prominence in the hills above my house that I hike to virtually every night. I generally pack some cheese and a can of beer and sit up on this outcropping to watch darkness creep over the landscape as the light dies in the west. My throne is pretty damn barren and inhospitable…it’s rock after all. But it is fractured and creased in places and some of those crevices collect and hold a bit of sandy soil.

In one of those crevices, life has implausibly taken hold. A solitary Chamisa has sprouted from the sandstone and against all odds, is somehow eking out an existence. I’ve become quite attached to this little Chamisa for some reason, and I’ll share some water with him occasionally to make sure he gets through the long, Southern California dry season. He’s my buddy, at least in my mind, and I’ve become obsessed with checking on his health every time I go into the hills.

One day when I went to visit, I noticed he had an unwanted neighbor. A Russian Thistle had taken hold in the crack and was threatening to hog all the water I provided and to crowd out mi chamisa. Furious, I yanked the invader from the crack roots and all and tossed it unceremoniously over the edge of the outcropping. It relinquished its hold in the crack surprisingly easily.

Russian Thistle, a non-native invasive, is pervasive in the hills of Southern California. I’ve always known it was there, but like Black Mustard, it is so ubiquitous and so integrated into in the landscape that I never gave it much attention.  But after my clash with it on the sandstone outcropping, I took a hard look at the areas immediately adjacent to the trail leading to and from the prominence. The area is carpeted with the offending stuff. It’s easy to spot right now because it blooms in late summer-early fall and consequently is one of the few plants that is currently green.

That’s when it hit me. I was going to yank some of that shit out. I knew getting rid of all of it was a fantastic crack-pipe dream, a moron’s errand, but I figured eliminating it from portions of the trail was a battle I might be able to win. So, the following weekend, I bought sexy-looking black pick-axe from Lowe’s and became a guerrilla soldier in the war on Russian Thistle.

Later that night, I packed leather gloves, water, and beer into my pack, grabbed my new implement of death, and headed for the hills. At first, I was a bit reticent about hiking with a pick-axe, not knowing how folks would react. I thought maybe someone might challenge whether my removal of non-native invasives had been appropriately “sanctioned” by whomever it is that sanctions these types of activities. I got a few curious looks, but nobody said shit. I guess I looked official. In reality, I was just some beer-swilling dude with a fucking vendetta.

Since that day, I’ve removed thistle from the area surrounding the sandstone rock on which mi chamisa resides as well as the upper stretches of the trail leading to the outcropping. I honestly don’t know whether my efforts will have any positive effect, but I figure at a minimum, I’m giving space for native plants to sweep in and re-occupy the areas that were being hogged by the thistle. Beyond that, it just makes me feel happy and satisfied. And best of all, the crack that mi chamisa calls home remains Russian Thistle free.