This damned dog has started eating cactus. And that goes about like one would think it would go. I know she’s been doing it again because she comes back with a face full of cactus needles. I mean hundreds. And not the big spiky white ones either. No, the teeny little orange ones that are thin and brittle and break off in the tweezers, resulting in raised pus filled boils. I was telling my coworkers that in 7 years, neither dog had ever done this, and my australian shepherd never partook. it was always only the mutt. I said, “she’s supposed to be the smart one, the brains of the operation. Historically she has been. I just dont understand what’s happened here. Maybe she’s gone and developed dementia?….temporary psychosis…?” My coworker said, “no, i know what happened. The cows do this sometimes. The flowers smell sweet and the ripened fruits smell sweet to them so one will get curious every once in a while and try the cactus fruit and once they try it they get addicted. Its like nicotine to them. They cant resist it. So they’ll just deal with all the needles in their face and throat at that point. And i get a herd of cows coming in from the field with one who has needles all in her face.” So, now i have yet another thing on the to do list, which i’ll get on after doing about 30 other things first…but i’ve added “pull up all the cactus in the dog run” to my to do list, because the damn dog has lost her ever loving mind.
As a kid, I’d use hot-dog tongs to gather a few of the “pears”. I’d use a propane torch to singe off the glochids (the tiny hair like spines), cut them open and eat the insides of the fruit.
There were lots of seeds, but…the taste…it was worth the work. As an added bonus for a 7 year old, the seeds were great “straw gun ammunition”. 🙂
Later I’d gather 2-3 pears from each cactus until I had several pounds of the ‘pears’ and then use them to make jelly.
Forgot. The “only issue” was that my lips would turn a very dark, very unnatural, red.
Lol, i feel like this would maybe be a welcome problem for girls.
Lol, ive tasted them and immediately decided they were my new favorite fruit above pears and strawberries. But then my neighbor showed me everything she did to remove the needles with sandpaper and work gloves and i decided those things might as well be non existent to me. I dont have a propane torch. Maybe thats the thing to have. But i cant imagine just straight up eating them without taking the little needles out. She and the cows are nuts.
Gas/propane stove?????
It’s too bad, from my point of view, that something so good is so well protected from being eaten.
I have heard that rolling them around in sand and rinsing them will work, but I have never tried it. YMMV. But I’m not sure if that means Your Mileage May Vary or Your Mouth May be Violated. 🙂
I think I was 9, maybe 10, when I learned that using a brush to get rid of the spines is a bad idea….gets them airborne where they float around until they stick into an arm, hand, face, leg, scalp…………
The sand paper thing kind of works but it never gets every last one so you’re chewing having a great time until that one left behind is found….even though i examined with my eyeballs i thought i got everything but the sand paper always leaves one or two behind. I’ll only eat them if somebody else did the work but my neighbor also misses one or two each time so its a risk. I think the fire thing must be the way to go but alas the stove is electric. Id have to get a torch. Can you get those at home depot?
Yes. They’re probably in the plumbing section. The propane ones (usually blue cylinders) work well for this.
How do you know when you got all the little needles? Do you count to a certain number of seconds?