The Perils of Cholla

I can not emphasize how sneaky and painful the cholla cactus can be. Yesterday, on our survey, while we were walking along looking for archaeological sites, my co-working was impaled by some kind of cholla--maybe a pencil cholla or stick cholla with longer spines. It had 1-1.5 inch spines and was easily 1 inch into his calf muscle. He yelped quite loudly and then cursed for quite awhile. It took the pliers on his multitool (like a leatherman) to remove the spine from his leg. He then looked at his calf and it looked like a big bruise with swelling was forming around the puncture. He limped back the rest of the transect to the truck and we had to make it a short day.

This is not the first time I have seen someone traumatized by cholla. In Arizona, while hiking with friends, I told my firends about the infamous Jumping Cholla, also known as Teddy Bear Cholla, which has the reputation of actually jumping on you. In fact, it does not take much for it to attach, very slight contact will allow it to grab on to you, so it seems to jump on you. I never found this out for myself, knowing that names like this have roots in reality, but one of the guys I told this too just had to test this idea out. He didn't believe it. He went over to closely examine one, reached out to touch the something, and a cholla plant jumped on his hand. Actually it came from below his hand where it had been cleverly disguised, and he touched it. Their spines are even worse than the spines on the cholla that attacked my co-worker above. The Jumping Cholla has slightly curled thorns that go in every which direction making them very difficult to remove. Once again the leatherman was used to remove it. But it was not pretty.

So remember, keep away from cholla!

The Rolling Plains of West Texas

I am currently surveying (looking for archeological sites) in West Texas on a line where they will put in a water pipe and pumps to get water from Lake Alan Henry to Lubbock - about 50 miles. We are walking through some rough rangeland with mesquite shrubs, prickly pear and cholla cacti and other rangey plants grasses and forbs. I love it. No trees, nothing but sky and red dirt -well mostly red dirt. We have to walk the whole distance with an occasional shovel test. This will take us 1000 feet up in altitude over that distance (from ca 2300 feet above sea level to 3300 feet above sea level). So far we have only found places where people were looking for good rocks from which to make tools. Not too exciting, but I really enjoy working out in the plains again. I have spent the last few years in wooded areas and I am relieved to be away from all those god-awful trees. :)

However, my feet hurt!

Still, we see rabbits and deer skitter off away from us, every so often, and hawks flying over head. Many other song birds sing to us as we pass by. And yesterday we had four or five horses run over to greet us (probably assuming we had treats for them). Quite a treat for us, although we had nothing for them.