OK, who's been dumping Miracle-Gro on the tumbleweed in WA?

[KY_EnviroGuy]

either that or there's a huge leak out of the Hanford Site......

Ambushed: 15ft tumbleweeds trap drivers and force road closure
Mobile plants forced authorities to close a highway in both directions for hours in Washington state on New Year’s Eve
Associated Press in West Richland, Washington state
Thu 2 Jan 2020 02.13 GMT / First published on Wed 1 Jan 2020 18.39 GMT

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/01/tumbleweeds-trap-drivers-force-road-closure-washington

(snips)

Unlucky drivers in Washington state saw in the new year trapped under a glut of 15ft tumbleweeds, after the desiccated but mobile plants forced authorities to close a highway in both directions.

The Washington state patrol announced via Twitter at around 6.30pm local time on New Year’s Eve that drivers on State Route 240 near West Richland should use alternative routes. Trooper Sarah Clasen told KAPP-KVEW vehicles were trapped in a pile of tumbleweeds that were up to 15ft (4.57m) tall.


The state department of transportation used snow plows to clear the scene, a process trooper Chris Thorson said took about 10 hours. The road opened again at around 4.30am, well into 2020. Thorson said five cars and one 18-wheel semi truck were trapped. No injuries were reported.

“People were still stuck at midnight and rung in the new year trapped under the weeds,” Thorson said, adding that troopers found one abandoned car trapped in the tumbleweeds at daylight. No one was inside.

A truck trapped by a pile of tumbleweeds


KY............ ..........

[RockRaven]

1. Y'all know tumbleweed is RUSSIAN, right?

True story.

[AJT]

2. FAKE NEWS....they're Ukrainian...

[Brother Buzz]

5. Damn near DUzy worthy

[nilram]

12. Yup and HILLARY brought them over

through a smuggling ring she ran out of very, very, VERY hidden basement.

[DURHAM D]

3. Exactly.

In fact, when I was growing up I never once heard anyone call it a tumbleweed.

It is a Russian thistle.

Just last week at a family gathering one of my younger cousins made a comment about tumbleweeds and I corrected him. Then I had to explain the Red/Russian wheat and how the Russian thistle came along for the ride.

[Drahthaardogs]

13. Kochia weed is actually more common

Asca tumbleweed than thistle out west. Some actually plant it for forage

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. Appears to be mostly a colloquial word with beginning references...

in the late 1800s that may refer to any weed-like plant that uproots and rolls with the wind. Being raised in the South, the first I heard the word was in the song "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" by the Sons of the Pioneers on country radio, probably in the '50s, and saw pictures of them on the TV Western shows like Gunsmoke. My first direct exposure was in Wyoming during some road jobs when I recall comparing it to walking into a briar patch.....

From: https://www.britannica.com/plant/tumbleweed

(snip)

Tumbleweed, plant that breaks away from its roots and is driven about by the wind as a light rolling mass, scattering seeds as it goes. Examples include pigweed (Amaranth retroflexus, a widespread weed in the western United States) and other amaranths, tumbling mustard, Russian thistle, the steppe plant Colutea arborea, and the grass Spinifex of Indonesian shores and Australian steppes.

Heck, tumbleweeds are really big movie stars!

KY......

[Grokenstein]

16. Nice compilation!

Surprised someone hasn't made a cheap-a$$ "horror-comedy" about a horde of man-eating tumbleweeds. (...Oh great, I jinxed it.)

[KY_EnviroGuy]

22. Perhaps someday, some brilliant shit will come up with a good use for them....

since there's an inexhaustible supply for free, as your video suggests. Large suck trucks with built-in mulchers could gather a few million of them a day.

I was thinking biofuels, food supplements, animal feed (it was used during the depression), fiber for making paper or cloth or ground up as compost.

KY............

[UniteFightBack]

4. Wow that's amazing! nt

[rickyhall]

6. Didn't know tumbleweeds were aliens

[KY_EnviroGuy]

23. Many similarities to Republicans...

* refuse to slow down and face the truths of life on earth,
* often can be real pricks and obstructionists, and
* have little or no use to mankind.

KY..........

[sagesnow]

8. Darn! Now I have a new ear worm!!

[Seiad]

9. I once squared up against a tumbleweed....

.... thinking it would be funny. Not funny. They have a certain amount of weight behind them. plus the wind. Mine was only about 5 feet tall, and it kicked my a$$, lol. knocked me over. Downtown to boot. Never know where they're gonna come from.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

14. Some say they can be rigged to ward off Republicans and.....

after my limited exposure out west, I would say it's appropriate. Some Rethug starts spewing a line of Limbaugh bullshit, just toss him a basketball-size tumbleweed (I'm being humane)......

[tclambert]

10. In one car they found, no one was inside . . .

The tumbleweeds ATE someone?

[Beartracks]

25. Haha I thought the same thing!

I posted too late it seems. Lol

=======

[dalton99a]

11. Kick

Link to tweet

[KY_EnviroGuy]

17. Some of these ideas are pretty cute....

Tumbleweed Fun and Uses
Collection by Curious Country Creations.com

See: https://www.pinterest.com/curiouscountry/tumbleweed-fun-and-uses/







KY..........

[Tikki]

15. Those suckers used to whip through town and pile up in front of doors, along with heaps

of sand.

The smaller tumbleweeds, not that much smaller, would blow through town as I walked
home from school and plow right into my legs and scratch my legs all up.*

Tikki


*when I was in school girls weren’t allowed to wear pants to school.

[spiderpig]

18. It's like an old Outer Limits episode

where people were trapped in their house by killer tumbleweeds.

[PatrickforO]

19. Yeah, I thought of that immediately when I saw the pics of the tumbleweeds.

Because you know, they aren't tumbleweeds.

Not really.

They are DEMONS.

From the Outer Limits!

[Demovictory9]

20. I vaguely remember something like that... tumbleweeds were aliens?

[CentralMass]

28. https://dai.ly/x5zrcb2

[Thekaspervote]

21. The weather channel featured this story... nuts!!

[Beartracks]

24. Was the car abandoned? Or were the occupants... eaten?!

Attack of the Killer Tumbleweeds



========

[Throck]

26. Save the Miracle Grow for the hemp plants!

[CentralMass]

27. There was a great Outer Limit epsiode involving tumbleweeds: The Cry Of Silence

https://dai.ly/x5zrcb2

[KY_EnviroGuy]

29. Thanks, will finish watching later.

And, thank you for a new entertainment and news agglomerator site.......

[CentralMass]

34. You are welcome.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

30. the big question: why is the tumbleweed community so anxious?

Need some upChuck Toady interviews and NYT analysis of the migrating tumbleweeds and how the Democrats are ignoring their plight.

[MineralMan]

31. Tumbleweeds are amazing!

After my enlistment in the USAF ended in 1969, I got a job with a major natural gas company in Southern California. While working there, as a warehouseman, I got sent to a remote natural gas distribution facility. I was there to deliver some industrial gas meters, and was told to clear away some tumbleweeds that had accumulated while I was there.

Well, when I arrived at the facility, which was a large open space surrounded by a 12' high chain link security fence, I found it almost completely full of tumbleweeds. There was room for me to drop off the big-ass gas meters, but after about thirty seconds, I realized that there was no way one guy with no tools could do anything about a 300-foot square enclosure full of tumbleweeds piled on top of each other.

So, I drove the truck back to the gas company headquarters and reported in about the tumbleweeds. "No way!," I said. "That's going to take a crew with chainsaws and about three dump trucks to deal with. My supervisor scoffed at my assessment and said, "Nah. You can do it." "Nope," I replied, suggesting that he climb in the truck and I'd take him up there for a look.

He agreed. Once he saw the situation, he said, "Well, you're right."

In the end, it cost the gas company over $5000 to clear that enclosure.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

32. Interesting story, MM. They had no choice but to.....

restore working access and eliminate fire fuel load. I can see a huge mess if a fire got started from a tiny gas leak and your pump or valving station destroyed. Their insurance carrier would rake them over the coals.

I'm envisioning the tumbleweeds slowly building themselves a "ramp" outside the enclosure as they ran into the fence and after it reached the top of the fence, others just glided up the ramp and into the space. Does that sound right?

KY......

[MineralMan]

33. You probably have it right about how the tumbleweeds got in there.

I'm sure that's just how it happened.

My supervisor couldn't believe his eyes when he got there. I suppose some field crew had reported "some tumbleweeds" in the enclosure.

They're almost impossible to break down. While the stems are brittle, they're also very springy. If you stomp on a tumbleweed, it will recover almost completely. You can't feed them into a chipper, either. About the only way to get rid of them is to load them whole into a dump truck and haul them away. They burn well, but in the places they're common, fire hazards are high, so a fire isn't usually a good way to get rid of them. It certainly wouldn't have been good in a natural gas distribution facility.

You also don't dare to run over them with a vehicle. They will lodge themselves under the car or truck, and then friction will heat the dragging material up enough to catch it on fire.

They're pretty much indestructible, really, using any normal means. But, they weigh very little, even large ones, If you pick them up by the base, you can toss them in a dump truck easily. But, that dump truck will fill up quickly if there are lots of them, and they aren't heavy enough to self-compress and too springy to compress otherwise.

The easiest way to get rid of them is to haul them somewhere else, dump them, and let the wind carry them off, really.