Pokey Things

I hate pokey things in the yard: briars, thorns, cacti... you name it.  If they are pokey, they will poke me.  The sad thing is that I know they will poke me and hurt, but invariably, I'll forget about the pain from last time and get poked again.

It happened yesterday. Last fall, we carefully pulled down a cactus near the back of our house, after I got a butt full of tiny, invisible needles while bending over to get water from the spigot. For some reason, this particular cactus has big, dark, visible needles, then has evil, fishing line-looking needles, just for fun.  I managed to miss the big needles, but forgot about the killer invisible ones. Now I have three in my right hand: two in my palm and one on my middle finger. Ow. You'd think after having a bunch in my butt last summer I'd remember. Sorry to burst anyone's bubble that might have thought of me as brighter than this.

In our other homes in WA and OH, we managed to eradicate the pokey plants. We chopped down bayberry, with its giant thorns... had someone else remove a giant holly tree (turned out it came with another kind of pokey thing: wasps)... and pulled blackberry vines until we were blue in the face.  No pokey things have ever prospered in our yards. Until now.

Georgia is home to many pokey plants.  We have cacti, yucca, some pokey trees that I don't know the name of but they look like little palm trees, juniper bushes and briars. Of these, the only ones that weren't planned are the briars. Mom actually planted the others. Can you believe it?? Someone would purposefully plant things in the yard that hurt to garden.  Sure, they are pretty in a Southwest sort of way, but oh the pain. Of course, Mom loves to garden, so perhaps garden love somehow negates the pain. Although, she was on board with getting rid of the giant cactus, since it bit her, too.

Ah well.  If the heat keeps up, the only living plants remaining will be the pokey ones.  And then, where will we be?!