Saving the Cactus

John and I were on a neighborhood walk over the weekend when we spotted a neighbor cutting down his cactus.

By chance, I had taken photos of it last month when it was in bloom (it’s on our daily walking route).

It was a beautiful thornless prickly pear.

I have no idea why they chopped it down, maybe they don’t like bees? He was still out there working on it when we walked by, so I asked him if we could have some of the cuttings and he said sure. It should root fine. We came back with our pickup truck and a couple of bins and took more than we needed. There was so much! He had scattered it all along the outside of his wall near the walking trail.

Here’s John collecting some. Note his mask; even outside with no one around, it’s the law here.

There’s so much cactus! It had been a huge and glorious specimen.

A friend of mine came down and got some too. Remember when I put a greeting card in a neighbor’s mailbox even though I didn’t even know her name? John thought I was crazy. Well, now she and I are email-pen-pals. She lives just up the street from the cactus guy, and I know she loves plants, so I emailed her to let her know.

John planted them all over the front yard, which we haven’t put much effort into yet, so is mostly just rock. We have plans to add more native plants, such as different kinds of cactus, as well as desert willow and similar drought-resistant plants.

After scattering them around the front yard, he put the extras in pots for now. We’ll have to see how they do. (Locals, let me know if you want a thornless prickly pear!)

That same afternoon our internet quit. We were sure it wasn’t our modem, so we managed to talk Comcast into sending out a repair technician. Turns out instead of having a robust cable buried deep in a conduit, we just had a flimsy line, a few inches below the rock.

John had managed to cut the line while planting cactus, without even realizing it. (Isn’t that a cute little cactus? It looks like an alien!)

The technician installed another flimsy line as a temporary measure, so now we have internet again. They want to trench 18″ deep and lay new cable in a conduit, which is the more modern method.

But John is dubious, because it would be a lot of trenching. It would need to run from the street, under our driveway, and all the way up the side of our house. He doesn’t trust them to do it without killing an evergreen we have on that side of the house, or messing up the driveway, or something. Who trusts Comcast? So we’ll see. It’s always something!

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com