The photo below is not one I have taken, it is a down loaded photo. Being elderly, I sometimes forget to take a photo, of the before, “Back breaking project”. Taking a photo after a back breaking project seems a little useless. So, I have taken a photo after, yep, “I am useless!” You got to be something!
This is what happened yesterday. I went outside to remove some prickly pear cactus, and I forgot to take a before photo.
It was a hot windless day in July, I mean May (it just felt like July), with the temp reaching 97 degrees during the day, with a humidity level of 114%, (everything is bigger in Texas) when I decided to remove said cactus.
Many years ago, shortly after we first moved in to the Homestead (the year was 1979) we felt that we should plant some cactus in a flower bed. Now that we were in Texas we felt, for some dumb reason, that having some of this invasive plant in our yard would be a good idea.
Over the years we have learned that getting rid of this plant is rather difficult. Several times over the years I have tried to remove the plant. Several times over the years this plant has grown back. The main problem has been, when someone drops something into the plant, it is difficult to remove the item without getting an unknown number of stickers in your body. These stickers are various sizes, some are easy to see, while you need a magnifying glass to see others.
In the past the neighbor kids were teenagers, and they occasionally had items accidently go into the cactus plant. I should state, “Removing the item from the plant is not the only problem”. Allow me to explain. At one time the teenager’s basketball went into the cactus. They carefully removed said basketball and found that it had the stickers in it. These boys were observed trying to remove the stickers from the ball with a pair of plyers.
I had found base balls and other items in the cactus that, once in the actus, there was no attempt to remove the item.
We now have young kids living next to us and we do not want them to be hurt by the plant. We don’t want them to try and get a toy out of the plant so I have removed it again. I used tools with long handles not allowing any of the softer materials like rubber handles, to come in contact with the cactus. I had taken the trash cart to the flower bed and began removing the plant. I have half of the trash cart filled with this cactus.
Let’s hope the cactus does not come back. I have taken a photo, but it is an after photo without the before photo, sorry! Click to exaggerate!
I hope you can visualize this prickly pear cactus with its twisted body, part of which was underground, and parts that were dead, but most of which was waiting to attack any mammal within reach.
On a totally different subject, I have to clean this office area today. I sit here at my desk by the door to the garage, which is often left open in decent weather, allowing dust, pollen, and the occasional wasp in. The cats and dog like to hang out in here. I don’t like to run the air conditioner unless it is very hot so I keep a fan at floor level running most of the time. The fan has a tendency to move dust, and hair all around the room. Did I say, Tres enjoys lying in front of the fan, and as the fan blows over his hairy body, the lose hair flies around the room. In an effort to reduce the dust and hair problems I have ordered a fan that has three filters. I am hoping to clean the room and then allow the fan to reduce the amount of dust and hair in the air.
The new fan with filters is supposed to be out for delivery so I need to get to work cleaning!
May your day be dust free!
Don Ford
No comments:
Post a Comment