On 6/28/2013 9:20 AM, KenK wrote:
I live in the southwest desert and am having a cactus problem.

I have a very large 9 - 10 foot cactus in my yard - prickly pear I think it
is, the one with the rosy red large edible buds - which lost about half the
plant through a breakoff.

Anyway, I'm slowly cleaning up the corpse. This variety of cactus has very
fine thorns, like fur, but very very irritating. I hate to use good fabric
gloves to handle the pieces for fear the thorns will probably imbed
themselves and make the gloves unusable for anything else. True? I think
the thorns will go right through latex gloves. Any convenient way to handle
the large pieces other than piercing and moving them with a big knife or
screwdriver? Not very convenient.

Next question - a way to get the thorns out of my skin? They are so small
they are almost invisible to my aging eyes to get out with tweezers.

TIA



chop the pieces up with a shovel, and then you can pick them up with
large kitchen tongs or even the shovel.

i use clear packing tape to remove the small thorns. duct tape would
also work, but also pull out any hairs on your skin too.