On 6/28/2013 11:20 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


Several sections of newspaper folded together and thoroughly wet will
protect you from this type of cactus. Just cut into sections that you
can move and grab it with the folded/wet newspaper. You can also stick
the ears back in the ground and grow new cacti.