Desert Disasters

It was a beautiful morning (it stayed 80 degrees for a long time!) and I was looking forward to reading on the patio at my grandma's house while Malachi played in the yard. The neighbors cat leaped over the wall and came to visit us. Malachi's eyes widened with surprise, and I told him "cat". He quickly repeated "cop" - well, close enough. The cat actually came up to him at first, but then kept its distance as Malachi chased him about the yard.

Later, I saw Malachi headed toward the cactus in the corner of the yard. I firmly told him "no", and he proceeded to reach for it. I expected him to touch it and gingerly take back his hand, but, no, he takes a firm grasp of the beaver tail and jostles it without even a wince. Confused, I took him over to where I was sitting and examined his hands. Sure enough, hundreds of hair-like little stickers all over them, and even up his arm. My first thought - "Am I going to have to pull each one of these out by hand?!" So I tried a few experiments (high pressure rinse from the hose and packing tape) all to no avail. Malachi wasn't any more excited about me pulling the things out than I was. The stickers didn't really hurt until I started messing with them! He wanted to chase around the "cop" some more, not sit on mom's lap.

It all got cleared up pretty well, but we both changed clothes as soon as we got home because the little hairs were everywhere.


Our other encounter with unfriendly desert life happened last Sunday. Travis found our dog Elsie with a swollen nose and 2 tell-tale scabs - she had been bitten by a rattlesnake. Turns out she was bit in the best spot since a snake just hit bone and couldn't get a good grasp on her in order to inject a maximum amount of venom. But she definitely swelled up - her nose is usually much more slender, like a shepherd's and you can kind of see what looks like a ball hanging from her throat. She looked like a moose, poor thing!