Cactus Polka

Last week I took a hedge trimmer to a cholla (cho-ya) cactus in our back yard. It is rather spindly and has arms that stick out in every direction in order to catch anything that happens near. The cactus is on the way to the back fence where we are training Lily to go to the bathroom. I was concerned that she would brush the cactus as she passed by and end up stuck. I carefully cleaned up the area of the small prickly balls that cause people to nickname this the jumping cactus. The joints are so loose that it is only necessary to lightly brush the plant and a section breaks off and attaches itself to you.


The next morning as I was putting on my tennis shoes my foot came in contact with one of the laces on which a ball of jumping cholla had secreatly attached itself. In a split second it was attached, quite painfully, to me. Although I was able to get my fingers on the imbedded needle it caused too much pain to pull on it for me to remove it myself. After a couple of tearful phone calls I hopped on one foot across the street to the neighbors. Nancy came out and easily removed the barb with a tweezers (all the jumping must have loosened it as she hardly touched it and it came out painlessly).

My cactus encounter and first hand understanding of the pain made it worse when, over the weekend, Lily flushed the birds out of the shrubs near the mailbox and ended up with a ball of needles from the chain fruit cholla attached to her.



Having lived in town as an inside dog the desert plants and animals are new to her. She did what seemed natural...tried to remove the cactus from her leg with her mouth. By the time Jay and I reached her she had a large prickly ball attached in several places inside her mouth. I calmed her while Jay went for the plyers. It wasn't fun for any of us but we eventually rid her of all the needles. I was thankful that Jay had been home as I wouldn't have known how to help her on my own.


I thought Lily was a smart dog but am reevaluating today after her second encounter with the same cactus. At least this time she knew not to put her mouth on the needles and she just stood and waited for me to come get her. I don't know if it was because I had to hold the dog and remove the cactus by myself but it was a more difficult and painful procedure this time.

This afternoon I carefully removed many of the fallen cactus chuncks and deposited them in the trash. Hopefully this will be our last cactus adventure for a long time.