The Hogsty

Morning everyone . . .

25° and some light cloud cover

Yeah I have tulips popping out of the ground in the back.

I had stopped for lunch at the Blue Springs Cafe in Illinois in 2017 on my return from the ride to Chambersburg Pennsylvania and the total eclipse was happening. Also toured Gettysburg on a Segway with, was his handle Big Foot?, that was an interesting thing.

Good morning. My post yesterday didn't seem to show up. Anyway, to re-cap, the cactus do have seasonal flowers and fruit. The Indians made the fruit part of their staple diet, along with Mesquite tree beans, I have 400 year old grinding holes in a rock gully behind my house. Temps today are 58-77, sunny.

A sunny morning in central Wyoming with 50 degrees and some gentle air movement.

That's interesting, Mike. I've eaten prickly pear fruit, but I'd have to be mighty hungry to snack on mesquite beans. Both proliferated around our house in Kingsville, TX.

In college, my graduate ecology class took a four day field trip to the central California coast when the prickly pear fruit was ripe. Someone mentioned it was edible, and before we knew it, our beloved yet clueless ornithologist had pulled a fruit and bitten into it without peeling it first. He got a mouthful of glochids. I spent a considerable amount of time that afternoon using Swiss Army knife tweezers to pull the ones I could see out of his lips and tongue. His girlfriend was too grossed out to do it.

No greater love hath a scientist than to pull thorns from a fellow scientist's tongue.

I've wondered how long it was before it was safe to kiss the poor guy again.

As long as we're talking cactus stories, I will tell you about a golfing neighbor of mine. Seems years ago he and a friend were playing a round on our local course. He hit a ball which rolled up close to a big Barrel Cactus. As he backed up to take his shot his backside bumped into the cactus. Now he was standing on the cart lane, with pants down, while his friend was pulling cactus spines from his bare ass when a cart load of women came drive around the corner. Not his best day !