So I'm hiking out from Beard's Hollow with Sue Cody and Alex Pajunas from the Daily A and we're talking about Discovery Trail and how cool it is. As we get to the beach, the trail turns north and we do the same. We ran in into Gerry Shields, nursing a repaired knee into health by taking a long walk south from Seaview. The Turners zoomed by on bikes and other families with their kids. As we walked along I spied this plant in the dunes: I'm thinking..what the hell is that? Looks like some palm or something that should not be there. Of course, no camera and Sue's wasn't working as well. Anyway, went home, emailed Dave, Kim and the sister Kathleen and let them know strange things are afoot and that if this is global warming, then there's no need to move to Hawaii or Arizona for that matter.
Kathleen calls me immediately and she's got to see this thing and so we hike out and she's dumbfounded. "Mother of God, Like Holly Cow!" and a more prosaic "What are you doing here?". Then "It's a Yucca" as in "You know, like Tequila".
We stand before it, awe struck. Speechless. What the hey? Is this a Sign Of Things To Come or are we entering Gabriel Garcia's twilight zone with a special twist (with lime) for ecologists? Are there more out there?
Then we dig around in the sand and find the top to a disposable soft drink container right near the root wad and some netting that oranges would be sold in and pretty soon it dawns on both of us that this Yucca got here in a storm, was tossed over the dune edge about 30 feet and landed in that soft fine sand that follows a storm. It was probably an outcast from the Columbia River after a flood or as Kathleen says, somebody flipped it over a bank and it floated down and ended up here, on the LBP dunes. And there it grew, in fine shape, possibly 4 years old.
The wind had whipped the Yucca around to a frenzy and probably damaged the trunk as a consequence, the alien invader was likely not particularly long for the world. No diplomatic immunity so we made a citizen's arrest and proclaimed 25 to life in a garden plot.
Yucca! can't believe it.
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