The real Blob

During the summer...Kudzu never sleeps.  

Sunday evening the dog and I walked south to the Pig farm.   We both just tripped along aimlessly in the heat and humidity of the afternoon.   By the time we arrived at the end of the road my clothes were soaked with sweat and I felt exhausted.  We stopped for a few minutes and rested during which time I took a photograph of the Kudzu vine covering the field on the right side of the picture.  There is actually a forest of bushes growing under the Kudzu vines in semi shaded conditions.  The vines grow madly during the summer and are killed to the ground in the first freeze of the winter.  Kudzu was brought here from Asia in the late 1800's as a decorative plant, then it was used to provide ground cover as protection from soil erosion by the Federal government in the 1930's.  Since then it has escaped to cover as much as 7 million acres of the south.  There is no solution for the vine in the form of a herbicide so all anyone can do is cut them down and dig up the roots.  I guess we are just going to have to live with this immigrant as there is no way to make it go home.  A familiar story here in this country.  Thanks for coming by today.  Bye.