Doug Fine: Author, Journalist, Adventurer, Goat-Herder

I am bloodied and in pain as I write today. Not because of billy goat attack (that will be detailed in an upcoming post – Natalie the nanny goat is dating as we speak). Not because of any psychological bruise recent foreign policy decisions have inflicted upon me. But rather because everything is sharp in this ecosystem at this time of year.

I am essentially a seed transport mechanism for tiny, painful Chinese stars that leave my dog limping and mandates socks for me. Socks are a strange garment in the desert. And not just socks: disposable socks. Think really strong Velcro.

That’s because all the prettiest wildflowers recognize they need to get nasty in order to survive in a desert/alpine forest transition zone. The stars come from a yellow daisy-like beauty in late summer that makes the desert, horizon to horizon, look like a sunrise and drives half the human and canine population mad with allergies – choking their respiratory system from sinus to lungs (it doesn’t bother me, thank God, though Sadie gasps half the night and the vet prescribed Benadryl). I could look up the scientific name for this flower but that would be an academic exercise. Allergy sufferers across New Mexico know the plant as FYF. That is, (Expletive deleted) Yellow Flower. Even some allergists call it that. I love the flower’s effect on the Funky Butte Ranch’s panoramic palate as much as I hate its seeds and the way its potent pollen tortures people and other animals close to me.

I’ve come to think that all human weapon innovations, from grenades to poison gas, have derived from personal desert experiences by vindictive people. All is fair, they say, in love and war, and in the realm of desert seed dispersal the two seem to mix. I mean, literally interbreed. Conceptually. And so my mind wanders to the way concepts come to manifest themselves in the physical world. The photo I’ve posted here displays just a few samples of the Chinese stars that, in the billions, are the bane of life here while folks elsewhere can enjoy autumn in the more traditional areas of changing colors and cooling temperatures. We get those, too, but I don’t notice because I’m hobbling around, pulling spikes out of my spine.

In fact, beyond weapons systems, as I sit for my morning meditation, becoming a pin cushion that makes me feel like an adept of Opus Dei, I think of the social ramifications of an ecosystem where nearly every new thing a curious child reaches out and touches will result in significant pain, requiring minor surgery. It could help explain the way that folks of all backgrounds in this mountain culture tend to be cautious about reaching out too firmly, too quickly to neighbors: since birth they expect to be poked with thorns any time they even graze something unfamiliar. Often they’re right. Physiologically, this is why humans developed such strong foot soles. (A college dorm mate of mine once approached me with a dense blue synthetic goo ball: he tossed it at me, and explained he was studying the characteristics of our nearly impenetrable soles for use in some sort of graduate product development class. “We can’t concoct anything as strong as whatever makes up our feet,” he told me. I squeezed the hackey-sack-sized thing. Indeed, I thought our foot material way better.)

The Chinese stars are in everything from mid-September through Thanksgiving. I remember the day the assault started – September 16. I could no longer collect the day’s salad greens in my Chaco sandals. I couldn’t make it to the garden gate without yelping followed by collapse (which furthered the problem, since no place was safe from the genetic weapons). By October Chinese stars were in everything — my desk seat cushion, my dog’s lip, my food (high in fiber, my goats tell me, though even they, nature’s most unflappable creatures, shake their heads in mild discomfort when more than a hundred at a time make their way into their first stomach). Clothes come out of the wash still looking like camouflage.

I watched the phenomenon unfold yesterday morning after making the crucial mistake of meditating in my flannel pajama bottoms anywhere outside in New Mexico in autumn, let alone in a naturally land-mined meadow. I limped inside with a permanently Velcroed ass area in suddenly disposable PJs. Then I tried to take a nap under needle-infiltrated sheets, probably unwittingly transported by Sadie the Velcro dog.

An entirely new and horrible thing happened in this terribly one-sided battle (there is no destroying an FYF Chinese star) a few hours later, which was the proverbial final straw, and spurred this cautionary dispatch. Though I was protected neck to toe in fiercely strong denim and leather, the FYF Ninjas dumped a load of Chinese stars down my pants while I was learning over to fix a leak in a drip irrigation pipe (caused by an early frost). I confess to exhibiting a bit of plumber’s butt this chilly morning, but I still maintain that the attack violated every rule of civilized floral warfare. I couldn’t even really make these notes for several minutes because the pocket where I keep my notebook had been booby-trapped as well.

I’m losing hours of productivity around the Ranch every day, hopping and pulling at seeds hitching a ride. I look like a bed-of-nails Swami who fails his final exam every time I try to sit down to meditate or nail in protective fencing on the chicken coop. In the case of the drip system attack, I had to yank down my Carhartts right in the garden and perform surgery (in a finger-plucking version of the way Sadie does with un-complaining teeth pulls, except in the case of multi-frontal assault, when she trots up to me with the wounded paw extended, awaiting the assistance of my opposable thumb). This time I ended up pockmarked with bloody streaks on my thigh that had me later in the shower wondering if I’d truly and unwittingly joined a self-flagellation cult.

In my daily life, I can pick one Chinese star off my sweater or inside of my sock, but there is no guarantee this was the one that was lacerating me with every step, causing me to yelp and limp like a soccer player faking an exaggerated injury. Those Velcroed socks I was talking about? They come out of the wash aerated, studded and completely unusable. And socks these days, of course, cost what shoes should. (Shoes, we know, cost what mortgages should.) Just the other day I took the liners to my Sorel boots out of the laundry, and injected a vestigial Chinese star into my bloodstream with the first step. The uninitiated only wonder for a short time why someone might collapse in agony just from the simple act of walking. PTSD is an over-diagnosed disorder these days, but if you approach me at an autumnal book reading some day and try to shake my hand, please don’t be offended if I jump back a step and examine your palm for nature’s grenades before thanking you for coming. I’m usually over it by Valentine’s Day.

4 Responses: