Posted on 03/19/2014 7:10:26 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Tumbleweeds overtake neighborhood and trap families in their homes
Recent tornado-like winds have covered a Colorado Springs, Colorado neighborhood in tumbleweeds. The large dried plants have invaded the Cuchares Ranches subdivision to such a degree that some residents said they were trapped in their homes and had to call 911 for help.
“I look outside and tumbleweeds are literally blowing up and over our house,” Melissa Walker told KRDO NewsChannel 13. “I didn’t expect to be able to jump from my second story window into a pile of tumbleweeds.” In some places, the tumbleweeds are stacked 10-feet high.
As reported by KCNC CBS 4, the neighborhood is under development and does not even appear on maps yet, so the tumbleweeds blow in from adjacent empty fields. The invaders are not new to Colorado Springs, but the locals say it has never been this bad.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
That happened to my neighborhood in Aurora, CO in the ‘60s. Tumbleweeds were up to the gutters. My friends and I made tunnels through it all even going over fences under the cover of the weeds. Stickery stuff but we didn’t care.
Tribble attack!
I had this happen at my home once before back in the mid 80’s and it is a problem due to the overwhelming amount of fuel that is suddenly present. I was used to dealing with dozens now and then, but one year the wind blew in thousands overnight.
It only takes one moron that thinks they can deal with it by burning them in situ instead of crushing them and burning them in a burn barrel well away from the main mass to set the neigboorhood on fire.
Then there was the time when they plowed and seeded a field that had been left fallow for a couple of years and the field mice moved in with us. They ate all the labels off the canned goods in one night and I found two drowned in the honey pot.
You can hear the "Whoomp!" from blocks away....
Trapped in their homes by tumbleweeds? That sounds like the Democrats starving, stuck on escalators that have stopped operating.
Just imagine your 22 pound housecat gone wild and threatening you, the wife and the kids...but you can’t leave because the tumbleweeds have piled up against your front door. “Hello, 911?”
Honey! Grab my lighter wouldya?
Ouch! Maybe that was not the best idea. Do we have any unguent in the house?
Sorry Honey, we're all out...
You folks need a hand?
No, I think we got it under control. Thanks anyway, Clem.
Ha ha! Look at 'em boys go up. That'll teach 'em.
Just glad we had a couple of those torchy things, or we'd've been sunk. Only thing that can ruin a picnic faster than those dang tumbleweeds is ants...
LOL!
Nice gif!
From:
http://voices.yahoo.com/tumbleweed-edible-wild-food-2993525.html
“Most people don’t know that the annoying a lowly tumbleweed is in fact a nutritious and delectable edible plant. When the leaves are young shoots they are a delicious and tangy delicacy!
Also known as Russian thistle, salt wort or salsola, tumbleweed makes us reminiscent of the southwest United States and the wild wild west. Known mostly as a nuisance on windy days. In fact this plant is native to Africa, Europa and Asia. It is grown and served in Italy and Japan. As young shoots this plant is tastier than spinach and makes a fine addition to the foragers dinner table.”
More info at link along with a recipe!
(I think that these tumbleweeds are a bit past their use by date....)
Caveat:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/11/041108021040.htm
“Tumbleweeds Good For Uranium Clean-Up”
Source:
Geological Society Of America
Summary:
“The lowly, ill-regarded tumbleweed might be good for something after all. A preliminary study reveals that tumbleweeds, a.k.a. Russian thistle, and some other weeds common to dry Western lands have a knack for soaking up depleted uranium from contaminated soils at weapons testing grounds and battlefields.”
More at link
Make certain you “source” your tumbleweed salad greens. You may want to avoid anything that grew near Rocky Flats.
Hey Bill, you may want to look at this.
Hang on Bobby. I got somethin' somethin' going on here.
Bill, this is serious. Global Warming... sorry Climate Change... has apparently produced a race of giant ants that's triggered our sensors at Colorado Springs. As if those poor people didn't have enough to deal with, what with tumbleweeds spoiling their picnics and all...
Just don't let the boss find out about this dame. She's warming up this whole galdang computer center.
Helllooooo Colorado Springs... Take me to your sugar bowl.
Somebody help!!!
Clubbing 'em sure as hell don't work...
Good thing we got our guns back after that recall. There's only ONE WAY to deal with ants this big!
One montage, six repeated scenes, and several thousand rounds later...
All's well that ends well, I guess. I'm sure glad those Air Force boys are so close by at the Academy.
That's easy for you to say. They didn't get here in time to save my hand, did they?!
It was a set-up. Took me a while to get my storyboard together.
Surprisingly, the naturally-packed piles don’t burn that well. Oh, they’ll burn, but not that hotly. There’s too much air gap between the burning fuel. You have to crush them down to a more dense fuel... then they’ll burn like a fury.
Where we farmed in Nevada, sometimes we’d get a half-section of tumbleweeds blowing in on us and trapped up against the fences for a mile of fence.
I’d push them off the fence with the backhoe, then push them up into a pile and then crush them down with the front bucket. When I was done with a mile of fence, I might have... oh, six to eight piles of tumbleweeds (russian thistle and kochia) 10’ high and packed really tightly.
We’d then wait until about 0300, call the fire dispatcher and tell them we were doing a controlled burn. We’d wait until about 0300 because that’s when the wind would be dead calm.
When those packed 10’ piles would go up, the heat coming off those piles would blister your skin 125’ away. I’d usually set up the pile with a ring of gasoline at the base to get the whole thing going up as quickly as possible so that I could get all the piles burned in an hour or so, then clean up the embers before dawn.
Probably the developer came first.
Russian thistle isn’t very competitive. It moves in where someone has taken out grass or crop fields and left it fallow, something that developers love to do. They come in, level out a piece of ground, and then leave it with nothing planted and ready to grow. Up comes the cheatgrass and russian thistle, and away things go.
LOL!
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