Noxious Weeds

It looks like I take the title of the only NOXIOUS WEEDS COORDINATOR on this blogsite! Woohoo for me! Since I am the only NWC, I will explain what I do! First off, weeds are plants that are out of place or unwanted. For example, grass that grows in your rocks and not our yard is a weed. But it wouldn't be a weed if it grows in your yard and not your rocks.

A noxious weed is a plant species that has been designated by state or national agricultural authorities as a plant that is injurious to agricultural and or humans and livestock. HUH? If you grow hay for profit and sell the hay to a horse breeder and then the horse dies, well, you might have sold contaminated hay and are in BIG trouble. There are certain types of weeds that can harm humans and horses.

My job is to find weeds that are detrimental to the agriculture lifestyle. These weeds are not native and over power native/desirable plants. The main weed I have dealt with is Russian Knapweed. It has a chemical that kills off surrounding plants. There can be solid fields of Russian Knapweed and nothing else. You might not think much about it, but if farmers depend on that field for growing, then it can cost them their income. Or maybe they have livestock grazing in this field of Russian Knapweed. This plant will cause a chewing disease in horses that will more than likely kill the horse.

(Below is a field completely taken over by Russian Knapweed)

When I first started this job, I had a rancher come in and tell me he had six cows die from eating Johnson Grass. This weed puts off a chemical when drought stressed and if ingested, it will quickly kill off a cow. Took less than a few hours. The cows cost between $800-$1000. That's about $6000 gone in 2 hours.

I work to help keep our agricultural growers growing. Not that my job will save the agriculture industry, but it is a stepping stone.

People hate the wind, but I look at is a "Pay Day!" For the weeds I haven't found yet, there will be a million seeds waiting to fly through the air to find a nice fertile spot in the soil!

Heaven In A Glass Box

It looks as though Mother Nature decided she had been neglecting New Mexico of snow! So to make up for the past few years, she has decided to dump it all at once, and maybe throw in a blizzard! Bring forth the snow!!! I will frolic with my dogs and throw snow balls at my family!

This past weekend we had our first snow of the year! Woohoo! But I decided that I needed to get my photos more organized. So, I pretty much lived in my pj's all weekend and barely trudged through the snow! As I started pulling up my photos and wondering how certain pictures ended up in bizarre folders, I came across my flowers pictures.

Most of my flower pics came from the Texas Texas Greenhouse and Gardens. I loved working in the greenhouse. The warmth. The smells. The pretty flowers. There's a great feeling of warmth when you walk out of the 20 degree weather and into the humid atmosphere of a greenhouse. Literally, a great feeling of warmth! It's amazing how warm it is inside a box of glass filled with plants.

My favorite thing about the greenhouse was the way the air was filled with the smells of the outdoors and felt like a warm summer morning in Virginia. The greenhouse I took care of, greenhouse 3, was like my own personal jungle. It was home to mostly all indoor plants, so the main color was green. Not just one green though, but variations of greens. I would spend hours in there watering, fertilizing, cleaning, rearranging, and just sitting between the jade plants and ficus trees contemplating life. It was my personal heaven in a glass box.