WEBVTT - Tumbleweeds, Part 1: The Wind Witch 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.400 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of My 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:14.920 Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.880 My name is Robert Lamb, and I'm Joe McCormick. Like 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:21.960 many of you out there, I've been familiar with with 0:00:22.000 --> 0:00:26.880 tumbleweeds for a while, but almost almost exclusively as just 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.880 this um sort of mundane symbol of the American West, right, 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:33.360 you know, mainly it's this type of thing you see 0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.160 popping up in old westerns or perhaps more to the point, 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.800 old cartoons inspired by old Westerns. Anytime you need the 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.440 audience to understand, this place is is desolate, this place 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:47.000 is in the American desert, or this place is a 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.760 ghost town. What do you do? You have the old 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.800 tumbleweed roll by, Yeah, tumbleweed means nothing's going on. In fact, 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.120 I think it's even a common gift. Right. You can 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.880 meme a tumble weed if you are to indicate the 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.160 thread has died or or you know, nobody's got anything 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:07.520 to say, Yeah, there's nobody in here. This is It 0:01:07.600 --> 0:01:10.560 comes to represent like not only desolation, but also uh 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:14.000 emptiness and tedium. You know, it's just in boredom. It's 0:01:14.040 --> 0:01:16.039 like this, this place is empty, This place there's nothing 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.560 going on. This is the domain of tumbleweeds, and therefore 0:01:19.800 --> 0:01:25.640 it's easy to think, well, tumbleweeds themselves are boring tumbleweeds. Uh, 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.040 there's nothing going on with tumbleweeds. There's it's not the 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:29.960 kind of thing you could do a two part series 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:34.880 on for a podcast. Oh but you would be wrong, yes, yes, 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.000 uh and uh and hopefully we will we will prove 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:40.679 that in uh, in this pair of episodes that we're 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:44.200 gonna be doing. Um. But but before, just a couple 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.399 of weeks ago, I was very much of the mind 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:49.280 the tumbleweeds. They they pop up in movies sometimes a 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:53.800 lot of times they look fake. Um. Yeah, for we 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.360 were actually looking at some clips prior to recording these. Uh, 0:01:57.520 --> 0:01:59.640 you know, does this look like a real tumbleweed or 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.960 a fake tumbleweed? Um? And I wasn't always in a 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.080 good place to judge this well. I think one way 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:09.079 in which movie tumbleweeds often fall short is in size, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:12.200 just the size shown, Because the tumbleweed in a movie 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:16.000 it's always pretty much basketball sized. It's very round, or 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:18.480 maybe you could say like turkey sized. You know, it's 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:22.720 like a good Thanksgiving turkey. But it's made out of twigs. Now, obviously, 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:25.639 tumbleweeds can vary in size and reality, and we'll we'll 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.320 explain more about that as we go on. But you know, 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:30.800 a lot of real tumbleweeds I've seen, especially in some 0:02:30.840 --> 0:02:34.080 of the more dramatic tumbleweed footage where where humanity is 0:02:34.120 --> 0:02:38.120 really doing battle with with tumbleweeds. Uh, they get big. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:40.120 You know, they're more in the like beach ball to 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.080 bean bag chair range. Oh absolutely, yeah, you know, thinking 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:47.079 about the cinematic ones. Yeah, a lot of the times 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.480 when you see a kind of essentially a fake looking 0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:53.200 tumbleweed and obvious plant, a plant that is is self 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.560 a plant. Um, it will be that beach ball or 0:02:56.639 --> 0:03:00.440 turkey sized, uh tumbleweed just big enough to where it 0:03:00.520 --> 0:03:03.359 is amusing but not a threat. Uh, it'll just kind 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.399 of be, you know, lazily rolling by in the background. 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.919 And Uh, one film that that I was looking at, 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.200 it was pretty interesting because you can see both examples 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.560 of this, and that's the film The Petrified Forest starring 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.200 Leslie Howard, Betty Davis, and Humphrey Bogart, which in and 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.240 of itself is a tremendous film, but some of it 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.200 is is obviously on more of a set or a 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:30.639 sound stage, and other bits of it are filmed outdoors. Uh, 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.800 perhaps in actual Arizona or at least somewhere in California 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:38.120 that that you know, fit the bill. Yeah, and in 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.480 the location shot, in fact, there's an early location shot 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.360 where you see Leslie Howard's character walking down the street 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.240 there and there's a fair sized tumble weed that that 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.120 comes in at a at a pretty swift pace. I 0:03:49.160 --> 0:03:51.400 don't know if they filmed it in during an actual 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.839 windstorm or they just have some you know, some big 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.080 fans going. But uh, there's a moment there where I 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.120 when I was rewatching and I'm like, oh, jeez, I 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:02.280 hope this doesn't hit Leslie Howard. That would uh you 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:04.000 know that that that wouldn't be very becoming of such 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.680 a suave character. Well, isn't the beginning premise of the 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.000 film that he has traveled out west in order to 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.240 maybe commit suicide. So is it possible that he wanted 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.920 suicide by tumbleweed? Well, I don't know how romantic would 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:19.760 that day. Uh? Yeah, I think he says that he 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:21.919 he's hoping to one day see the Pacific Ocean and 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:25.720 perhaps drowned in it. But but I can't imagine saying 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:28.640 I hoped one day too to uh run across the 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:32.640 six feet tumbleweed and be demolished by it. I hope 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:38.360 one day to to be absorbed by a sea of thorns. Yeah. 0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:41.080 So yeah, to to get back to the to the 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.240 point here. Yeah, these tumbleweeds can get rather large. And 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:49.640 I never really realized this before until this holiday season, 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:53.400 this that we've just gone through because this year, or 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.599 this previous year rather just after Christmas, my family we 0:04:56.720 --> 0:05:02.160 found ourselves, um driving south from Phoenix to Tucson, Arizona, 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.320 and then west towards Las Cruces before cutting up to 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.720 Albuquerque and then Santa Fe and um, and we were 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.400 doing this because we originally are going to take a 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:14.159 northern route through Flagstaff, but winter weather forced us to pivot. 0:05:14.240 --> 0:05:17.640 So here we are, Uh, we're going on Interstate ten 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.840 between Tucson and Las Crucis. And what during my stretch 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:25.080 of the driving, we begin to enter this uh, this 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:27.279 this this uh you know, the you know where in 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.400 the desert is you know, desolate. We get these advisories 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:35.400 about possible you know, wind, possible uh dust storms and 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.880 uh and then I begin to see the first tumbleweeds. Uh. 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:40.560 And you know, I've been going out west for a 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:42.800 while now, and I don't think i'd ever really seen 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:46.440 a tumbleweed in action. Maybe i'd maybe i'd seen one 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:50.680 small like turkey basketball size one. But this was the 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.240 first time I started seeing some real bad boys, some 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.480 real monsters rolling around. Uh. For first of all, at 0:05:58.480 --> 0:05:59.880 the you know, sort of the side of the road, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.800 were sometimes like stuck up against a fence. But then eventually, uh, 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.200 they're they're crossing the road. They're being blown across the 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.000 the highway, and it's quite alarming because again, some of 0:06:11.000 --> 0:06:13.400 these are are huge. There we were we were commenting 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.200 at the time, perhaps overreacting, that they look like they're 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:19.240 the you know, about half the size of a Voltswagen. 0:06:19.480 --> 0:06:23.480 Did you hit one? Oh yes, yeah, eventually let's started 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:28.080 hitting them and that they explode. Yeah, they kind of 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:31.800 or it's kind of like, um, it's like frosted, uh 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:36.599 not frosted. What were they? Yeah, but not the many ones, 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.360 the big ones. Oh yeah, Okay, it's like a shredded wheat, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.359 like shredded many wheat, of the shredded wheat hitting the 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.000 front of your car. They just kind of, uh yeah, 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.560 crumple and implode, and um, part of it gets stuck 0:06:48.640 --> 0:06:51.440 under the vehicle. But it's alarming because they're so big 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.200 in volume at the size at the time. I don't 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:55.560 know why I thought of it this way, but I 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.480 was imagining it's like running into a ball of about 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:06.240 five thousand tooth brushes and toothpicks all loosely taped together. Yeah, yeah, 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:09.400 and it's it's like that. And yeah, you're seeing them 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.400 slam into other vehicles in the the opposing side of 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:16.200 the highway. I'm watching them just slam into the fronts 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:19.480 of tractor trailer rigs and and it's weird to watch 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.480 them because on one hand, there there's something about the 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.160 tumble weed moving around that is kind of comical. There's 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:27.920 something absurd about it. And so I'm kind of freaking 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:30.520 out about the driving of My wife is just like 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:33.520 cracking up laughing at these things in the seat next 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.080 to me, and um. And then the other thing is 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:39.960 the way that they're you know, they're they're not perfect spheres. Uh, 0:07:40.520 --> 0:07:43.080 they're not perfectly round. They have this kind of oblong 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.000 shape to them, so they kind of tumble and bounce 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.400 and especially with the you know, the uncertainty of the 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.520 wind and also the aerodynamics of the high speed traffic, 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.520 the way that they behave kind of comes to to 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.120 mimic that of an animal. You're trying to figure out 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:01.920 what's it gonna do. Is it gonna cross, is it 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:04.040 not gonna cross? Is it gonna halfway cross? And then 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:07.000 change direction, and so all of this adds up to 0:08:07.080 --> 0:08:10.040 this this anxiety I was feeling about these tumbleweeds because 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:12.280 I'm I'm trying to to to figure out what they're 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.200 going to do and if I'm going to hit them, 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:15.520 and then I have to make sure I'm not going 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.160 to swerve and make the situation worse. Well, so with 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.120 us talking like this, I immediately wonder if it's like 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:24.040 if it's like us also talking about trying to drive 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.080 in snow. I don't know if you've seen the stuff 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:28.680 on the internet where anybody who lives up north makes 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:30.640 fun of people from the South. You're like, you know, 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:32.600 there's like an inch of snow on the ground and 0:08:32.600 --> 0:08:36.280 suddenly nobody can drive. Yeah. I imagine that there are 0:08:36.320 --> 0:08:40.800 some some desert dwellers out there who are who are 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.360 having a laugh at um that at how we're talking 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.280 about this here, and I mean they're probably used to it. 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:48.679 Uh yeah, I just I don't think i'd ever been 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.000 down there or and I wasn't in the right place 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.600 at the right time to encounter like full blown, literally 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:57.760 full blown tumbleweeds season. And I was I was actually wondering, 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.040 why are there no signs advising tourists about this, Like 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.520 they're warning us about what to do during the dust storm, 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:06.440 But how about it, like don't swerve, just go ahead 0:09:06.440 --> 0:09:08.480 and hit the tumbleweed. Uh, you know, some sort of 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:12.800 a poster to that effect. Anyway, I afterwards, I started 0:09:12.800 --> 0:09:15.600 looking around because I was curious, well, you know, does 0:09:15.640 --> 0:09:17.240 this ever get out of hand or is this just 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.000 something where if you're if you live around at you're 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.320 used to it. Well, Uh, I did some research online. 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.880 I started running across news stories with headlines featuring things 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:32.160 like tumbleweed Nightmares from as recently as last month, in 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:37.080 which winds basically blocked certain New Mexico roads with tumbleweeds, 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:41.679 or a NBC headline quote thirty foot tumbleweed pile up 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.679 traps cars, semi trucks on Washington Highway, or another one 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:49.640 this this was quite impressive tumbleweeds bury New Mexico town. 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.679 And if you start looking up footage or images of 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:55.640 some of this um it's it's not as much of 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.160 an exaggeration as as you think, like you're looking at 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:03.320 a two story like suburban homes and the tumble weeds, 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.720 which again you're talking about tumbleweeds that can reach you know, 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:09.640 sometimes like six ft in diameter. They're piling up, they're 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.560 reaching the second floor of the house. Yeah, piled up 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.840 like heavy snow drifts, except probably even more difficult to 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.640 deal with than snow, right because snow, I mean you 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:22.719 can at least shovel out of the way. I don't 0:10:22.760 --> 0:10:25.360 know if I could say easily, but to some degree easily. 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.400 Tumbleweeds are notoriously difficult to handle and deal with. I 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.439 think because of their size and their shape and the composition, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:36.800 like the thorny nous of them. It's difficult to just 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.679 grab them because they're usually thorny and and in some 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.760 way repel your flesh. And uh. It's also difficult to 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:46.480 to sort of scoop them out of the way because 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.600 they tend to break. Yeah, with snow, Like one of 0:10:49.600 --> 0:10:51.280 the great things about snow is that even if you 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:54.760 don't shovel it. Um. Usually what's gonna happen is it's 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.079 gonna melt. Right, the sun is gonna na come out, 0:10:57.080 --> 0:10:59.440 temperatures are gonna rise, That snow is gonna melt. The 0:10:59.440 --> 0:11:02.000 tumbleweed is not going to melt. The tumbleweeds a mass 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.640 against the side of your house might not distribute on 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.800 their own and they might catch on fire. They might 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.680 catch on fire, yeah, because they're basically they're dried out, 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:16.600 lifeless brittle um vegetation. So they're they're they're a fire 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.640 has it. They're a legitimate fire hazard clumped up against 0:11:19.679 --> 0:11:21.199 the side of your house. So you've got to get 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.400 rid of them. Or if they're not, again, if they're 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:25.200 not against the side of your house, then they're perhaps 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.200 blocking the road. Uh. They can also cause other issue, 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.359 you know, they build up against fences. They can interfere 0:11:31.640 --> 0:11:35.200 with with drainage systems um because again, a lot of 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:38.600 the environments we're talking about here are very dry most 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:41.079 of the year, but then there will be a deluge 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.160 and during that time you need to have sufficient drainage 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:47.880 systems in place. You don't need those drainage systems and canals, 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.400 etcetera clogged with old tumbleweeds. They can also interfere with 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.920 irrigation systems. They can can cause a huge mess, and 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.400 they do cause traffic accidents. Um i'm reading. I was 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:05.200 reading about one in Jadito Wash that was apparently so 0:12:05.280 --> 0:12:09.160 impressive that the Arizona Daily Press did a ten year 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.480 anniversary story about the incident, and I included a photo 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:16.199 from the story in our notes here, Joe, it does 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.640 look quite impressive. You ever like comb a shedding dog 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.080 and end up with all these clumps of hair that 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:23.880 you need to get rid of at the end. But 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:27.600 then now imagine that, but it's twenty ft high. Yeah, 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.880 it's like like Clifford the Big Red Dog or Marmaduke 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:35.400 sized pile of of of shavings. Here now, like you 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:37.880 were saying, yeah, it's difficult to clean all this stuff up. 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:38.840 What do you have to do? You have to get 0:12:38.840 --> 0:12:41.760 a work crew out there. They've got to to gather 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:45.000 these materials up. You've got to put them into vehicles, uh, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.240 and and take them somewhere, take them away. And they're 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:52.679 mostly air, so you end up like really filling up 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:57.319 a vehicle. But then you know the weight volume isn't there, so, uh, 0:12:57.360 --> 0:12:59.800 you know, you start doing the math on you know, 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.440 the the cost of labor, the cost of materials, the 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:06.440 cost of transportation, and and the cost end up really 0:13:06.440 --> 0:13:10.280 skyrocketing for the various counties and towns and cities that 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:12.760 have to engage in this kind of cleanup effort. One 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:15.160 of the articles we were both reading for this episode 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:19.000 is a PBS article about tumbleweeds by an author named 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:24.640 Gabriella Ciros, but citing information from somebody named Ariel of Vario, 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:29.920 a deputy agricultural commissioner at the county's Weed Abatement Division 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:34.760 in Lancaster, California. U Ciros writes, quote, in the cities 0:13:34.760 --> 0:13:38.040 of Palmdale and Lancaster, tumbleweeds are such a big problem 0:13:38.080 --> 0:13:41.560 that Los Angeles County spends a hundred thousand to a 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:46.040 hundred and fifty thousand dollars yearly mowing and chipping dried 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.200 out Russian thistle that's the name of one specific dominant 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:54.400 species of tumbleweed in vacant lots and abandoned agricultural fields 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.599 before they can tumble away. So this is above a 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:02.000 hundred thousand dollars a year of a problem for one county, 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.880 I mean big county, but uh, every year it's enough 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.240 to make you wonder. Um, you know, there's got to 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:11.160 be a better way, right, It's got to be some 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.480 sort of technological improvement, uh, that that we could make 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.840 that would uh, that would improve this situation. Uh and 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.560 uh And indeed I found evidence of a of a 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:27.320 really promising and and frightening looking project that I'm not 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.680 sure ever really quite got off the ground. But I 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:35.320 want to read verbatim from this n l A Times 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.440 article by Eddie Pell's go for it all right, there 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:40.960 we go Los Cruces, New Mexico. It looks like a 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.880 contraption straight out of a Stephen King novel, huge metal spoke, 0:14:44.960 --> 0:14:48.760 squirreling away, shredding everything in its path. But the invention 0:14:48.840 --> 0:14:53.120 from New Mexico State University's Advanced Manufacturing Center is out 0:14:53.240 --> 0:14:56.200 only to mow down the bane of the West, the 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.480 ever present tumble weed. So you shared video of this 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:04.000 man alur with me, and it does look like a beast. Yeah. 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.960 I found this this archived video that was put out 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.560 I think by the by New Mexico State University UM 0:15:10.640 --> 0:15:13.200 or perhaps the State Highway Department. I forget which, but 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.200 it was it was all about this, this promising new project, 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.320 and it included footage of the prototype for this that 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.440 The invention we're talking about is the tumbleweed crumbler. It 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:26.640 was developed via a forty contract at the time to 0:15:26.720 --> 0:15:29.560 New Mexico State University from the State Highway Department develop 0:15:29.640 --> 0:15:32.840 a better way of collecting and shredding the tumbleweeds. And 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:37.120 the prototype was essentially a pair of rotating, like inwardly 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:42.160 rotating metal spokes hooked at the front of a snowplow truck. Um. Yeah, 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:45.160 so it's like drum barrels imagine that are sort of 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:48.200 rolling inward as if you know, to to roll things 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:51.120 into the gap between them, which is pretty small, and 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:55.240 that it's got spikes sticking out of the drums. Uh. 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:58.280 And there's a really excellent part of the video where 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.360 a guy is standing right in front of it while 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:04.000 it's running, kind of feeding tumbleweeds into it, and we 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:05.600 were thinking, like, oh, is he going to reach in 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:08.400 there to try to clear out a jam by hand? Yeah, 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.200 it's gonna be like one of those like shake hands 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.600 with dangerous safety videos. It just looks very unsafe and 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.720 and I don't. I don't know. I the guitar twine 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:21.440 comes in. Johnny thought he could save time because the 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:24.440 I mean, it's terrifying, but it also looks really effective. 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:28.440 They show it, uh like running into mounds of tumbleweeds. 0:16:28.480 --> 0:16:31.560 These uh, these wheels with the with the spikes on them, 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:36.680 they grind up these these tumbleweeds and then the ground 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:40.080 up remnants are like sucked up and shot into the 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:44.240 back of the snowplow truck. So uh, you know, this 0:16:44.320 --> 0:16:46.360 seems like it seems like it would it would have 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.080 been a great fix because first of all, you have 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:52.000 the snowplow trucks anyway that are being used during parts 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.840 of the year to to deal with keeping the roads clear, 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:58.840 and then snowplow trucks without this kind of spike contraption 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.800 are apparently sometime times used to clear the roads of 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:05.000 tumbleweeds anyway, though of course they're just mostly pushing them 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:06.520 out of the way and not really you know, not 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.679 collecting them. So it seems like this would have been 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.159 a cool way to to deal with the problem. But 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.760 so are these machines day wegur Now, No, I don't 0:17:15.800 --> 0:17:17.720 think they are. That's the thing. You know you you 0:17:17.720 --> 0:17:20.040 see uh, you see an article like this, and you 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:21.760 see if you see footage like this, And again this 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.400 was ninety six and as far as I can tell 0:17:24.480 --> 0:17:28.080 this this ended up not really going too much more 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.600 beyond the prototype phase in the video they're talking about 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.359 they're going on to another phase of development. And I 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.760 don't know. Maybe I couldn't find an answer as to 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:38.199 why exactly they didn't go with this. Maybe it just 0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.600 came down to something as mundane as uh, you know, 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:44.920 the money or politics, UH, cost effective or something. Maybe 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.400 it just wasn't cost effective. UM, I don't know, maybe 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.160 it was too dangerous. I have no no way of knowing, 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.679 and I wasn't able to find out. But this seems 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.320 to be a trend with a lot of issues related 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:59.120 to the problem of tumbleweeds, particularly in the United States. 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:05.520 I kept running across UH promising sounding scientific solutions UH 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:09.400 from years past, solutions that in many cases may still 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.199 be in development, but but but have not reached that 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:14.840 point where someone is out there saying, yes, this is 0:18:14.880 --> 0:18:18.840 the thing we're actually doing tumbleweeds, watch out because we're coming. 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.160 Though some of these solutions do get more sci fi 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:30.600 than the mangler. Yes, yes, all right, Well, I guess 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.840 it's worth explaining at this point what are tumbleweeds? Uh, 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:37.199 And I think the most important point to say the 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.800 beginning is that technically tumbleweed is not a single species 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:47.359 of plant. Tumbleweed is a common morphological feature of a 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:51.800 number of different species of plants spread out across different families. 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.840 Though in the American context, there is one single species 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.000 in the in the amaranth family that tumbleweed most often 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.200 refers to, but it's by no means the only one, 0:19:02.240 --> 0:19:04.920 and we'll talk more about that species in particular later. 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.560 But the broader category of features of a tumbleweed is this. So, 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:14.320 a tumbleweed is the above ground structure of a plant 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:19.159 which at maturity dries up and snaps away from the 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:23.240 roots structure and then is blown around by the wind, 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.240 scattering seeds as it goes. Yeah, it's sometimes referred to 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.160 as a detachable diaspore. Yeah. And and a diaspore is 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:36.880 basically any seed and other structure that helps the seed spread. 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.919 So diaspore could include, like say, a little parachute like 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:43.240 thing that catches the wind, or it could include like 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:45.640 a fruit to that you know that an animal would eat. 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.160 It's the thing around the seed that helps the seed 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.000 get where it's going. Yeah, but in this case it's 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:54.960 pretty much the entire above ground part of the plant. Uh. 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.399 And so there are variations between different species, but in 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:02.600 most cases you can picture, for a tumbleweed, a bush 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.320 like plant that becomes very brittle and dry and has 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:10.320 a big tangle of different stem segments, and eventually it 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:13.560 breaks off at the roots at roughly the place where 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.480 the stem meets the ground, and then it rolls around 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:19.439 on the planes, driven driven on the wind, like a 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.680 giant inflatable ball. Now you might think, okay, most plants 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.399 don't break off at the place where they meet the 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.520 ground and then get their bodies blown around, dead and 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:33.840 dry by the wind. So why do tumbleweeds do that? Well, Actually, 0:20:33.920 --> 0:20:36.520 the answer is similar to the answer to the question 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:40.280 why are fruits delicious? Uh. The answer is it's for 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.720 seed dispersal, meaning the transportation of seeds and thus the 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.760 next generation of plants away from the parent and UH. 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.160 A lot of plant species actually spend a great effort 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.159 at seed dispersal, and there are a host of different 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:59.720 strategies available. So, for example, there is animal dispersal. So 0:20:59.840 --> 0:21:03.520 you can think of the seeds of edible fruits. The 0:21:03.560 --> 0:21:06.960 fruit is tasty and dense and calories, so animals want 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.640 to eat it. The animal will be attracted to the fruit, 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.360 they'll nom nom, they'll swallow it, and then they will 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.840 travel elsewhere on their their wings or their legs, and 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:18.719 then they will defecate and deposit the seeds in a 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.520 new home. But that's not the only method of animal dispersal. 0:21:22.520 --> 0:21:25.120 They are also the burrs that cling to the fur 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.280 of mammals, that that brush up against the parent plant. Uh. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:31.679 You know, I don't know if if you've got pets 0:21:31.680 --> 0:21:34.639 that are burr magnets like my dog is. But you know, 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.679 sometimes Charlie will will get into some bushes and then 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:39.760 when he when he comes out, it's a problem he 0:21:39.760 --> 0:21:42.400 has probably like you know, a thousand of these things 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:45.000 stuck to him, and and there are a bunch more 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.440 that there. For example, there is a whole class of 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:52.919 of diaspores that are spread specifically by ants that you 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.840 know that they have specific relationships with ants that will 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.680 maybe bury them underground in a way that's preferable to 0:21:59.680 --> 0:22:03.480 to the land. But there's also wind dispersal. So you 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:06.760 can think of the seeds of dandelions. They contain a 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.639 natural parachute, like a structure that catches the breeze and 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:12.679 allows the seed to be picked up by the wind 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:16.840 and blown to new lands. There's water dispersal. Coconuts are 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:19.159