[APWG] Send in your funny captions for a weed picture

[Craig Dremann - Redwood City Seed Company]

Dear All,

There is a local public lands open space district with tens of thousands
of acres here in the San Francisco Bay area, and in its 40 year history,
never established any aggressive weed management plan with measured annual
goals.  No weed management EIR has ever been written and there has never
been any formal public input or alternatives to manage weeds on these
public lands, offered to the public.

This lack of comprehensive weed management for this District shows up on
the front cover of their spring 2011 newsletter.

The front cover photo of one of their preserves is so beautiful, it could
have been a landscape painting by Andrew Wyeth or Norman Rockwell, of two
children and their mother frolicking in a meadow surrounded by conifers,
that you can see at http://www.ecoseeds.com/harding_2011.JPG

Unfortunately, the mother and two children are up to their necks in a sea
of Harding grass (Phalaris) which is a weed as devastating to Western
ecosystems as kudzu is in the South---all your native grasses are snuffed
out in the area wherever the “Green Tsunami”  sweeps into your grasslands.

To make the District aware of the native plants being overrun by this
weed, and using some humor to do so--for the rest of July I am suggesting
sending  the Board of Mid-pen and its Managers the funniest captions we
can think of, for that weed photo?

Their emails are <mailto:BOARD at openspace.org> and
<mailto:Managers at openspace.org>

My captions submitted so far, is the boy yelling to his mother at a distance:

"Mommy, mommy, toss me a machete so I can get the heck out of here!"

"Mommy, mommy, throw me a life preserver, I'm lost in this sea of
Harding grass!"

"Mommy, mommy, the Harding grass has eaten all of the native grasses
and wildflowers around me, and it's starting to eat me too!"

"Mommy, mommy, I'm getting woozy from the psychedelic chemical DMT in the
Harding Grass, just like Dorothy got sleepy in the poppy fields in
the Wizard of OZ!"

(e.g. Google--search Harding grass + DMT).

I would love to be carboned on any captions you send in.

And PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE to other weed discussion groups around the
world, so we can get as many captions sent in as possible this month.

I would love to see 100+ captions for that photo, and you can consider
each caption you send in, is a vote that shows that people care strongly
about exotic plant management---despite all the newspaper and journal
articles trying to downplay the exotic issue recently.

Plus the California native grasses that are trying to survive that Harding
grass tsunami, will be eternally grateful that you spent the time, trying
to help raise awareness of their plight with some humor.   Thanks.

Sincerely,  Craig Dremann (650) 325-7333