Thistles:

During yesterdays visit, Garry Fletcher remarked on the expanding thistle population around the tower base and suggested they be pulled. Today I started to tackle this job.  The thistles have a tap root that connects to a horizontal root which can spread many feet.  The thistles are growing in patches where many of the plants could be connected to the same horizontal root.  When a larger plant is pulled, the tap root breaks at this junction and reveals the depth of the horizontal root.  The longest root so far is almost 10″ long suggesting there is in places 10″ of soil on Great Race Rock! Only the smallest of plants, which may have germinated from seed, can pulled with the entire root intact. Today I cleared 2 square meters – a bucket of small ones and bundle of larger plants.  I plan to do this amount each day (more would be too hard on the back). I may not finish before I leave but with the horizontal roots still in the soil, this may be a yearly task.

Developing thistle flowers and the longest root of the day.

Facility work:

• cleaned solar panels
• thistles
• split rounds of firewood

Wildlife notes:

No new wildlife sightings to report. The gulls continue the mate and fight, and the Elephant seal spent his day sleeping in the grass.

Battle wounds

Vessels:

7 Ecotourism boats and 1 private boat

Weather:

Steady westerlies all day 18 – 23 knots