Foxtail or Wild Barley: Nature’s Most Expensive Grass
Living in the country has its good things and its bad things, its ups and downs, its recreation and its chores. The calm and peaceful days are only marked by the songs and songs of the birds; nights are silent save for the occasional sneeze of a horse. The course is beautiful, the views impressive to see, but maintaining the course property can be challenging.
The biggest challenge (and I challenge anyone to find a bigger one) is spring weeds. Not those weird criminals that spring up in the middle of a well-kept lawn (we don’t have a lawn); real weeds. The stubborn, aggressive, vengeful type. The backbone of the weeds is the wild barley, or foxtail, where we live. You poison it, it grows back. You cut it, three grow back in its place. You hit him with a weed trimmer, he takes revenge.
The foxtail’s primary weapon is its seed heads, or awns. They carry the seed on fur, wool, socks, hair, tires, noses, toes, or whatever other vehicle the foxtail chooses. The barbed fibers in the seed head act like small fishhooks, driving the seed head deeper into the soil, skin, or hair. It is quite common for veterinarians to remove foxtails from the ears, nose, toes, and body tissues of animals (mainly dogs and cats). It can be an expensive procedure and is almost always very unpleasant for the animal involved.
The best defense against this weed threat is prevention. Cut or cut weeds (or hire goats… we’re not kidding). In early spring, when wild barley appears as an innocent and tasty grass for horses and goats, the plant is harmless. If allowed to progress to the seed stage, they will sprout green awns that are still quite harmless. However, if the grass is allowed to dry to its dreaded golden state, the awning becomes a tiny missile launcher; brush it with new socks and you’ll have foxtails in the towel until the socks are worn and ready. The firing action is what also launches the seed heads into the ears of dogs and cats, to nestle there against an eardrum until the vet’s probe and forceps extract them.
Mind you, the offensive arsenal of weed poison (not popular if one has animals in residence) and weed cutters are only partially effective. Cut the plants, they grow more in their place, with more awns than before. Sometimes fox tails fly into the ears and nose of the trimmer operator. It goes without saying that sturdy pants and smooth boots are a must. Those seeds fly out of a trimmer’s head and stick to anything in the shooting range.
The coup de grace for the high cost of this nasty weed is its final revenge: weedcutters tend to hit and throw rocks. A broken window here and there in the house seems to make the foxtails laugh. In one reported home, foxtails have racked up a $1,000.00 bill due to vet bills for foxtails in the dogs ears and (as of now spring isn’t over yet) a broken window. Yes actually. The foxtails are laughing.