Mar
23
2013

Desert Landscaping

Getting The Prickly Pear In

(Add / View Comments) (0)Saturday, March 23, 2013 - 10:38:11 am
(Posted Under: This Desert Life This Desert Life, Desert Landscaping, Instagram Instagram)
5am on a Saturday - I don't see that often. The fact that I did this morning really goes to how inspired we are to get our desert oasis out the front done. Not going out to see a band last night certainly helped that.

I was somewhat over eager with setting my alarm for 5am. It seemed kind of dark, and a quick Google before I got out of bed informed me that the sun wasn't going to be up until 6:34am. That was kind of surprising to me. As a result, when all was said and done, I didn't get out there until around 6am. The going to bed early and getting up early was definitely worth it - the 59 degree temperature was beautiful for moving rocks and digging holes. Not a drop of sweat, which was such a change from the nights last week. Of course, that only lasted for an half an our or so. The difference once the sun was above the horizon and houses to the east was certainly noticeable. And continued to become moreso as the sun rose higher in the sky. Insert Bad, Crazy Sun lyrics here. It's not even remotely close to summer, but by about 8:30 I was ready for someone to shoot it right out of the sky.

In anycase, I got started on digging a hole for the prickly pear, and Katie took off to help a friend move to a new apartment. In the progress I came across another Cox cable that I had to work around. Katie got back a lot earlier than we imagined, and we set to work on getting the prickly pear in.

Planting a 5 foot prickly pear is just about as fun as you would imagine it would be. It was touch and go for a while there, trying to get the bucket off it, and it into the hole. The level of satisfaction when we did get it in was pretty high. And once it was in, the task that immediately followed was pulling all the spines from our bodies. The protection that gloves give against them is dubious. And it was just easier to change my t-shirt than deal with all the spines poking me through it. And this is a relatively spineless variety of prickly pear, in that it doesn't have the large spines. Just plenty of almost invisible ones to suitably drive your crazy!

Instagram Image

When all was said and done, it was about 2pm when we got finished positioning and filling the whole back in. Looks pretty damn good. And our vision for out the front is starting to take shape. Still a lot to do, but it's finally starting to get there.

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