Spring time will soon be here....again...Thank God!

I have been in this house for 36 years and I have fought the bind weed every step of the way.  Elm trees are my nemesis, especially when they grow in the fence line or sprout up in the middle of the Choke Cherry bushes.  But last year, I noticed that I am now blessed with cacti.  They are the flat leafed ones and I forget what they are called, but they have that fruit on the end of the leaf.  Prickly Pear.  I first encountered this little fellow 50 years ago when I lived out by the airport in Garden City, Kansas.  We had friends named Don and Claire .  She was of Mexican descent and wise in the ways of foraging for delicacies.  She came by one day and told me she found a field of Prickly Pear Cacti and wanted to go harvest some of the new tender leaves for food.

Since Duane was at work, I agreed and we loaded the kids up and away we went.  Oh, and I took a pair of Duane's leather gloves because she told me they were deadly sharp and we would need them.  So we picked a big basket full and then went home.  Since I had no idea what they were I let her take all of them with the promise that she would fix something really good to eat.  I carefully put his leather gloves back where I got them.  Bad mistake.

The first time he put them on he began to cuss.  They were full of something very sharp.  Oh, oh!  I of course confessed and I know they say confession is good for the soul, but trust me, it was not good for the ears or the body.  I had ruined his good gloves for nothing!  He was not going to eat that damn cactus and that woman better not ever show up at our door again and Don was an idiot for ever marrying that piece of what ever.  Any way.

So imagine my surprise when I went out behind the garage  to the area that was home to 500 million goat heads and 300 Sunflowers and lots of bindweed and found the cutest little Prickly Pear Cactus.  I was tempted to just leave it grow, but thought better of that and got the shovel out.  I cut the root and tossed it into the milk crate.  Then I saw another.  And another.  And soon the big double milk crate was full.

The survivalist  in me rebels against killing anything be it a cactus or a big tall Sunflower.  I could eat the cactus if need be for survival and the birds could harvest the sunflowers.  The strangest part is that I see no signs of cactus growing any where and the field out back is planted sometimes to a cash crop, so I doubt it they worked their way in from there.



Another mystery is the Centipede and how it manages to slither in my house when there are no visible signs of cracks, but slither it does nonetheless.  That is second only to how the bull snake manages to get in the goose house and eat the eggs!  I have actually drilled holes in the eggs and blown them out so my daughter could paint them and it is no easy chore!  First it is way bigger than a snake mouth and the shell is very thick..



So I guess, my biggest problems out here on the Mesa are the snakes, cactii and the myriad of cats that now occupy the neighbors garage.  Guess I will just set right here and let it all sort itself out.  If this is the worst that happens to me, I guess I am pretty lucky!