Goatheads

My sister, bless her soul, came up with the acronym SPOTS for our family a few years ago.  It stands for Simple People Of The Soil, and is said in reference to myself and my siblings (along with our families).  You see, until this generation, most of my relatives were farmers.  Oh, there was the occasional preacher, pharmacist, teacher, or other oddball, but most of us farmed.
We still have that soil mentality.  Sis has her own blog and talks about Kansas and her love of the soil in a recent writing.  She says she’d be happy with an acre of dirt and some bib overalls, and I believe it.
Of course, that may be a stretch now days.  During an age when city lots are barely fifty feet wide and 100 feet long, an acre seems like a lot of land.  We grew up on a two-acre plot of ground at the edge of a small Kansas town.  That acreage provided many places for play, and kept us busy with gardening, mowing, and goathead hoeing.
For those who don’t know, goatheads are a type of spreading burr that can grow to several feet across, with a central root.  You find the root and pull it, and you have the whole burr.  The trick is to not get stuck, and take as many of the goathead burrs with you, because seeds that fall off of the vine, even if premature, can lie dormant for years, then sprout when the soil is disturbed.
In about 1958, a five gallon bucket full of goatheads fetched five cents from a parent.  It seemed to take forever to get even close to a bucket full, and the parent always wanted to mash them down and have us fill the bucket even more for the same nickel.
I’m not sure now, since I think about it, whether I want an acre of dirt or not.  Now, no one pays me even a nickel for a bucket of goatheads.