Out of Mind, Out of Sight

It seems that our prickly pear cactus is remarkably unstable, like some leprosy-ridden, crack-stupefied zombie whose limbs fall off for no reason at all, except the cactus has a clever strategy: it can sprout roots from any part of its body that hits the ground, especially when the ground is drenched in the steady rain we've seen lately, spawning hundreds of cactus plants that poked up in a circle 10 feet in all directions from the plant (itself about 25 feet tall), that is until I went to work on it this weekend.

In the picture above, the entire area to the right was overgrown with cactus, spreading under and over the poor orange tree to the left and even attacking its roots underground (at least that's my theory) to cause the oranges to taste pretty awful (also pure speculation, but why else would they suck?), spreading even into the shady area in the rear but unable to fend well there against the vines and other dark-dwelling plant whores that thrive where even the lizards are afraid to go.

In the end I must have carried off a ton of cactus body parts. So I've made vow (yet another) to keep an eye on this prodigious limb-dropper, this prickly procreator, this wildly ambitious sticker plant, so that it does not attempt another takeover of the yard.

On a lighter note, Willow and Berkeley had some fun chasing each other.