Prickly Pear

This is a prickly pear cactus plant.  I'm not a real lover of anything cactus, but I know it has it's place in the world landscape.  It grows wild on the hill in front of our house among other native plants and trees.  It is the Cleveland National Forest and is protected.  You won't find it the first 200 feet up though.  That is landscaped and maintained by the HOA and it is really pretty and planted with agriculture that provides 'safety' for our homes.  Guess what?  Not a prickly pear anywhere in those 200 feet.  And now we know why.

Our local city magazine ran an article last week about the mudslide/flood on our street from last month.  To quote:  "  The extraordinary amount of rain during the night--almost 6 inches in 12 hours--saturated the native cactus colonies making them so heavy that they fell off the side of the slopes, leaving bare dirt washing down.  This created a cascade mudslide effect in numerous locations on the entire eastern slope of Bell Canyon."

It rained yesterday.  We walked into church and it was dry.  We walked out to a nice cold storm.  Driving home Christine commented that she used to love the rain and now it kind of scares her.  Duff  and I both had to agree with her.  It wasn't anything like in December and we will probably never get that again, but it did just kind of put a tweak in the tummy.

I got my vteaching finished up today.  I have a new sister on my route.  I enjoyed visiting with her and getting all caught up with how she is.  She works and doesn't have much time so I visit her during her lunch hour at work in my car in the parking lot.  Whatever works!