Visiting Laura and Eric in Tucson. The three of us went for a beautiful bike ride through the hills outside of town. It was rich Southwest landscape, a thin forest of tall, thick saguaras, long-stemmed, leafy ocatillo, and aptly named buckhorn cholla cactus grew fecund between the red rock mesas. Eric makes it a habit to learn the local flora and fauna where ever he lives, so I got an interesting lesson in the local habitat. In addition to the saguaras, ocatillo and buckhorn cholla, there are the fennel-like pallo verde, the well-named barrel cactus and the prickly pear. In fact, there are 25 different species of prickly pear, and seven or ten cholla.

While we were taking a break, waiting for Laura to catch up, Eric continued his horticultural info series, pointing out what he called the jumping cholla. I poked at it a bit, and tried to pull off a spine. It came off easily in my hand, but turned out to just be a hollow husk. I showed it to Eric and wondered if they were all like that just that one, so I tried to grab another.

According to A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert, the jumping cholla, or opuntia fulgida, has some legend and myth around it. It says that "many people believe that they really do jump, and some even claim to have caught them in the act. The truth is that the very sharp spines are so well-barbed that even if one barely penetrates skin or clothing, its grip is stronger that the connection between joints. If you pass a jmping cholla and turn tot look when you feel a tug on your clothing, you may see thejoint detaching and flying through the air as the elastic recoil of the cloth snaps it into your flesh. The double surprise of seeing a plant moving faster than you and the sharp pain of impalement leaves a lasting impression."

Indeed it does. One of those well-barbed spines must have nicked into my finger, and I jerked my hand away and a whole joint snapped off and flung itself at my open hand propelled by the elastic recoil of snapping back flesh. I was suddenly staring at a banana-sized clump of thorns, fifteen to twenty of which had embedded themselves at conflicting angles and depths into my palm, finger pads and even the soft, tender flesh at my fingertips to the side of my nails.

I gingerly pinched the bare nub at the other end and tried to pull it out, but the spines were in deep and the barbs hooked it in tight. My skin stood up in sharply sloping tents wherever I tried to draw one out.

After some deep breathing and experimentation (marked by more than a few failures that resulted in more spines embedding themselves), we managed to draw each spine out individually. Eric cleared my palm and one finger by pressed down on the tent of skin around the spine while I pulled away on the joint from the back. Then I pulled steadily and firmly until the barbed spines, one by one, dragged out. When the last spine popped, I flung the cholla joint away from me with a jerk before it could seek to reattach.

For future reference, A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert says "the easiest way to remove a cholla joint is to place a comb between your (or your dog's) skin and quickly jerk it away. Because of the barbs it will take considerable force (and teeth gritting) to dislodge it and the joint may fly several feet. Make sure a hapless companion is not standing in the line of fire!"

This is good advice all around. The rest of the day was marked by a strong, instinctual aversion to touching anything, as well as a sense of deep peace and well-being in my hand, where all pain had left with the cactus, but natual, long-lasting pain blockers were still parked in the receptors of my nerves. My hand felt like it had eaten percocet.