Good morning! (Or afternoon, evening, etc.) I slept little, but it wasn't fibro. It was Hubby's wristwatch. He accidentally set it to go off every hour on the hour and has yet to figure out how to undo it. I'll note he's had the same watch for 25 years. I gave it to him. I know. Aiee!

So what do I do now? No book chapter in a textbook for me. Mom doesn't trust me, and is pis*ing away every good opportunity I worked for her to have despite her not always qualifying for the goodies. I dunno. I just... yeah. Very Existential What Now sort of morning. On the plus side, my backyard is so overgrown by this one kind of weird weed that I may finally see it flower and get a positive ID on it! (And figure out if it's native, and allowable, or invasive, and killable. I go no-mow native-species. My little way of flipping off the HOA and embracing my environmentalism. Mwahaha! We're not up to eight houses doing no-mow yards in our HOA, and startedd with just me seven years ago, soooo.... I'll get these silly humans to evolve yet!)

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What's on your schedules today? (I already known half of you will do too much, btw, let's not kid ourselves here.)

I found a use for my "kitten sleeping bags". They smake very nice dusting mitts:-) Lousy mittens, but hey,  dusting mitts!

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Speak of identifying plants, I went to the USDA plant ID site. Turns out I have a small problem. I need to know its scientifie data before I can find out what it is. Wait, what? Who wrote *that* search?! If I knew what it was called, whyw ould I need to ask its name?

So what plants are not native but we think might be? (Or have "gone native" after time?)

Surprise! The tumbleweed! That's actually a Russian plant, whose seeds snuck in with some flax at some point. No, the Old West did not roll with tumbleweeds...  Tho' by Hollywood time, it did. You can actually find the classic "tumbleweed" of the Western US piled up against fences in huge banks during certain times of year. These plants rather understandably dispense seeds by drying out upon maturity, their roots die, and the wind blows them all over, and their seeds with them. One species in Australia shed enough seeds during one outbreak that people had to *shovel* them like snow. Yikes.

The dandelion? Not native to the US, but it fits in well, so we don't worry abou it like we do, say....

Kudzu. Brought in to prevent erosion, killing trees ever since. *headdesk*

The lovely pasture wildflower Queen Anne's lace is also a non-native in the US, but I can't imagine a pasture without it. Lovely flower. Don't confuse it with yarrow or wild carrots. Not taht the former is all that great if you screw up, being a "medicinal" plant (yeah, so is cocaine in some places), but you really don't wanna think Queen Anne's Lace is edible stuff.

The everyday daisy, poison hemlock (now native to where I live), and various thistles all came to the US via immigration, either intentional or otherwise. The idea that someone intentionally introduced poison hemlock---when we already have varieties native to the Americas---is just creepy.

BTW, the tomato and potato are both members of the same plant family as the poison hemlock. So're peppers. Weird factoid: The poison hemlock berries are yellow an dlok like unripe tiny tomatoes, and can be mistaken for ripe ground cherries if you don't know your stuff. For one thing, ground cherry fruits are covered in a weird papery husk like a paper lantern...

Ivy isn't native, either, tho' it's taken over. If you live in the Eastern US especially, you know it. Stuff's like kudzu for cold climates. Agh.

Another invasive that likes to take over is Scotch broom. Lovely yellow flowers, and a habitat-eater. WHen you see one? Kill it. Or you'll see nothing else. Trust me on that one. Stuff doesn't just live nicely like dandelions, oh no, it has to just overrun... Gah.

Speak of Scotland, thistles aren't native here, either, and who brought those?! OMG, I stepped on one barefoot once. You can't even make *noise* when that happens!

Periwinkle is another gone-native ground cover, but it loses out to ivy and while it grows wild, it gives way to natives pretty well in my area. (Ground pine, etc.) Hey, I can't get too fuzzy or I'd have no plants at all....

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Sorry, that was random.

And today in 79 AD, Vesuvius went boom. That eruption entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum, and today they still uncover more information as the archaeolgists dig down. Right down to carbonized food still in the ovens... Weird, right? The good news is, you die quickly if you're lucky in such situations. If you're not so lucky.... Well, yeah.

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I'm out. Fibro brain. "Cognitive fatigue" is what it's officially called right now. No kidding!

Purrs to all....