Again this year, I picked up trash along the road as one of my duties at Fort Frederica.  “Bucket List II” is explained below.  But before I get to that, I wanted to talk about one of the things I saw every week as I walked my route.  A tall thistle growing by the side of the road.

I tried to figure out what kind of thistle this is.  I’m not very good at plant identification and I tried to figure out what kind of thistle this is.  It is probably a field thistle (cirsium discolor) because the flower is the right color and the leaves are close.  But the leaves aren’t exactly right, so it could be something else.  I’m used to the shorter thistles in Ohio, and this plant in Georgia was easily ten times the size in volume of any thistle I’ve seen in Ohio.  It is not only tall, it is also thick with lots of stalks, flowers, and white bristles all over everything.  I admired its awesomeness while avoiding getting too close.

Each week as I walked past, the thistle got taller and taller.  The last week of my cleaning duties, however, the plant was much smaller.  The seeds had flown from the flowers and the plant was dying back.  Obviously it is a winter / spring plant in Georgia.  The pdf I read on thistles said that each plant can release 30,000 seeds, so it is likely there will be more of these impressive plants next year.

It seems like all the plants grow bigger in coastal Georgia.  The azaleas are bigger.  The live oaks are huge!  And you wouldn’t want to brush against these thistles.  They put me in mind of “Feed me, Seymour!”

Last year I had a contest called “What’s In My Bucket.”  Kristin won handily by obsessively searching the pictures and being very specific with her answers.  Good job Kristin!  This year I debated whether or not to have the contest, but decided to do a scaled down version.  Instead of 23 pictures, I only have seven!  Still plenty of ways to be obsessive but maybe not as time consuming.

The rules are the same.  There are seven pictures of things that I picked up or saw while collecting trash.  Most pictures have lots of objects in them.  How many can you spot?  Send me a list of how many you recognize – the more details the better – and I will give the winner a $25 Amazon gift card.  You can send the list to my email (hartleyfam@aol.com).  Don’t post it in the comments – you don’t want other people copying you!  The person who gets the most objects correct will be the winner.  I am the sole judge and the final authority on the answers.  After all, I picked up all the trash!

I will accept object lists through May 5, and I will announce the winner shortly after.  Then I will mail the Amazon card.  Usually my pictures scroll automatically but you will have to advance these yourself.  I figured you will be scrutinizing them closely.  You might want to look at the pictures on something bigger than a phone.

Have fun and good luck with “Bucket List II.”