Farm Fresh Blog

Each season at the ranch brings new surprises and captivating mysteries.  The puzzle for September was this:

I found them blanketing the gravel roadways along fence lines.

But what were they? The blooms looked like tiny purple pineapples or the blosssom of a lavender but the stalks were spiny and brittle, sharp and harsh.  What was the fascinating plant?

So dutifully, Other Half and the dogs sat in the truck while I hopped out with my camera to document this oddity for further research. I then asked some local folks, "What is this?"

And was told, "Thistle."

Hmmm . . . . Interesting. I had never run across this kind of thistle, so when I returned to civilization, I whipped out my stuff on thistles. Nada. Nothing.  Ah HAH!  A mystery! A puzzle! 

I was all kinds of excited, but I'm also lazy. A return to civilization also means the Merry-Go-Round of Life speeds up for me and because I wanted instant gratification the right answer, I posted the pics on Facebook for my gardening and biologist friends.  "What IS this plant?"

The beauty of the internet is that one can toss out a question, like a rock skipping across a pond, and just wait.  Lazy Busy people like this research method.  In a very short time, my mother, an avid gardener, responded:

"Eryngo - not a thistle. In the parsley family."

Wow, thanks Mom!  So off I went to research eryngo.  I NEVER would have thought this was in the parsley family.  Turns out that it IS a native plant of Texas. Deer won't eat it. No suprise there. Spreads by seeds. Wear gloves so you won't rip your hands to shreds while harvesting seeds. Ugly stalks. Wait rewarded by phenomenal display of vibrant purple color.

And as I read more about eryngo, I thought about how this little plant was probably a good example of a life lesson.  People wrote to gardening sites to tell them stories of how they endured patiently waited through the ugly unsightly, harsh, prickly stage of stalk growth, and were rewarded with a dazzling display of popping purple. 

And isn't a lot of life like this?  If we just patiently trudge on through the thistles, eventually, something good comes of it.