My husband and I have a routine in July. At 5:30 pm we deck ourselves out in rugged clothing from hats to thick gloves to boots. We climb into our UTV (Utility Terrain Vehicle), arm ourselves with sturdy, sharp little clippers and drive on our acreage (which includes a lot of wilderness land) until we find a batch of thistles. In sunlight, thistles can look dazzlingly beautiful — like a hundred proud purple heads surveying their domain. In Scotland the thistle is the national flower. In some areas thistles are used for teas and some say dried out thistle heads can be used for horse fodder. For New Age mystics,…