Slowly, very slowly, we're learning more about Minnesota's invasive species and noxious weeds. There are four classes of noxious weeds in Minnesota, according to this MNDoT reference:
- Prohibited: Eradicate (14 species)
- Prohibited: Control (9 species)
- Restricted Noxious Weeds (12 species)
- Specially Regulated (5 species)
To our knowledge, our property is host to one or two restricted weeds (common and/or glossy buckthorn) and one special regulation weed (poison ivy). The answer to our fuming earlier about why MNDNR doesn't control the buckthorn on their property is provided by the definition:
"Restricted noxious weeds are plants that are widely distributed in Minnesota and are detrimental to human or animal health, the environment, public roads, crops, livestock or other property, but whose only feasible means of control is to prevent their spread by prohibiting the importation, sale, and transportation of their propagating parts in the state..."Poison ivy, on the other hand, "Must be eradicated or controlled for public safety along rights-of-ways, trails, public accesses, business properties open to the public or on parts of lands where public access for business or commerce is granted...". Unfortunately, this definition begs the question of whether a property owner or the township is responsible for such eradication or control within the roadway easement where the township controls weeds by mowing only the shoulder and not the entire ditch.
orange hawkweed(?) at St. Croix State Park: invasive but not noxious?
Photo by J. Harrington
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The comparison between jumbled, garbled, poorly crafted noxious weed management guidance and definitions and today's press conference by Special Counsel Mueller is not lost on us. A number of state agencies, rules and laws provide guidance and requirements intended to craft an approach to minimize damage done by noxious weeds. In too many instances, it's unclear which party is responsible for undertaking eradication or control. Since it appears that a foreign-controlled, invasive species may have taken control of the presidency of the US, it's unclear which party is now responsible (Congress through impeachment or the electorate through an election two years from now) and how to require the responsible party to take responsible action. We seem unwilling and unable to control foreign invasive species in this country at a time when we are facing increasing types and degrees of threats to our very existence. It's almost like our brains have been affected by the consumption of too much weed. Perhaps that explains how MNDNR classifies orange hawkweed as "invasive" (Invasive species are species that are not native to Minnesota and cause economic or environmental harm or harm to human health.) but MNDoT doesn't list it as noxious. Should we ask Congress or the Minnesota Legislature to sort this out?
Meanwhile, we're still looking for help with the identification of these thorny plants growing in the ditch between the road and our property.
what is it? invasive? noxious? indigenous?
Photo by J. Harrington
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The World Is a Beautiful Place
by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind happiness not always being so very much fun if you don't mind a touch of hell now and then just when everything is fine because even in heaven they don't sing all the time The world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't mind some people dying all the time or maybe only starving some of the time which isn't half bad if it isn't you Oh the world is a beautiful place to be born into if you don't much mind a few dead minds in the higher places or a bomb or two now and then in your upturned faces or such other improprieties as our Name Brand society is prey to with its men of distinction and its men of extinction and its priests and other patrolmen and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations that our fool flesh is heir to Yes the world is the best place of all for a lot of such things as making the fun scene and making the love scene and making the sad scene and singing low songs and having inspirations and walking around looking at everything and smelling flowers and goosing statues and even thinking and kissing people and making babies and wearing pants and waving hats and dancing and going swimming in rivers on picnics in the middle of the summer and just generally 'living it up' Yes but then right in the middle of it comes the smiling mortician
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Please be kind to each other while you can.
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