Attempting a World's Record

 Attempting a World’s Record

If there is such a thing for the spear thistle, my eleven year old grandson Kai and I are going for it. Kai has his own sports blog, and he is enthusiastic about records, especially those of football. 

When I mentioned that I’m going for a record, his ears immediately perked up. When I told him it’s the record size of a thistle, he thought, “Oh, that’s Grandpa.” But we’ll see what he says if our thistle makes the Guiness Book of World Records.

Our thistle lives on the edge of the woods behind our meadow-like lawn, guarding, so to speak, what we call the door of leaves.  We call it that because it is an opening in the thick woods through which all manner of wildlife emerges - deer, fox, and turkey to name a few. Our thistle is now close to five feet high with sixteen blossoms. 

Besides the dubious distinction of a world record, why, you might ask, would we want to keep this weed. If we dig it up because it’s a weed, then we would need to dig-up or poison almost a half an acre of our lawn, because it’s all white clover, and miscellaneous other plants. What then would the deer and the rabbits graze on? The Scots know different. This “weed” is their national flower. And blossoms are great for our endangered pollinators.