Nopales

The Nopales cactus is a common sight all around Santa Rosa, but these two on our hill are unusual. The one on the right is made of metal and purchased by us as a sort of joke. With a surfeit of of spiky cactus type plants, we thought it would be funny to put something up there that didn't require digging a hole or watering....something that would rust artfully....something that we picked up on impulse at a garden sculpture/ feed store/nursery down the road because it amused us. In fact the whole place does. Some people think it 'detracts' from the beauty of the area because of its plethora of animals and flowers made in Mexico out of old tin cans and painted bright colors. But I digress...The plant on the left has no thorns

It is said that Luther Burbank thought the Nopales paddles would make excellent cattle food if he could only get rid of the thorns. After much experimentation, he succeeded, but he succeeded too well. The cattle ate them down to the ground so thoroughly that they were unable to reproduce.

Our friend David brought us a couple of paddles and,  having no cattle around to eat them,  he and John planted them in the ground next to the metal one. This was not my idea but I thought that with total neglect, it would die and then I could take it out. 

Au contraire. It has thrived on total neglect and grown at least six or eight new paddles.  If you look closely you can see that several of them are getting little knobs on them which will become red fruits or tunas. We could eat them ourselves. They are very popular with Mexicans, cooked and added to tacos, and tortillas, but not having grown up with them and not desirous of removing each thorn individually, for apparently they do have a vestigial thorn that we humans don't want to eat, I'd just as soon leave ours to the cows....

I think that this plant sort of negates the irony of having a metal cactus on our hill, but OilMan likes it and it is sort of funny to watch people looking at the two plants side by side and wondering...what the heck?