The joys of summer

For my first day of "official" summer work, I helped my dad and our hired hand fix some fence. I thought I would explain some things unique to our area since I was seeing them that day.

Below are pictures of something I have looked forward to every summer since I was just a kid. They might look a little weird, but they are wonderful to eat. If you look closely on the cactus, you will notice a yellow bloom. The piece right underneath the bloom is what we call a "cactus apple." When they are ripe, they turn a beautiful pinkish red color.

When I was a kid and we were moving cattle on horses, I would keep a closer eye on the cactus than the cattle I think ;-) Dad had introduced me pretty early to the wonderful snack. So when dad and I spotted one that was "just right", dad would hop down off his horse, use his pliers to twist off the fruit and then proceed to rub the thorns and pricklies off on his Wrangler jeans. Through this whole process, I would sit anxiously on my horse just waiting for that wonderful burst of sweet flavor. Then he usually gave the first one to me. It is sweet and delicious and our favorite part was to suck on the seeds to savor every last bit of it. 

Now, as much as I look forward to cactus apples, our cattle look forward to these next delicacies. These are soapweeds. They are also called yucca plants, but we call them soapweeds out here. I guess they are called that because their root can be used in soap. The blooms on the soapweeds are like candy to the cows. They will literally crawl through fences just to get to them. Right now we have hundreds of them beautifying our pastures.

As you can see, the cows pretty much pick them clean as soon as they enter a pasture. I've tried them myself a couple of times and they aren't too bad. They aren't sweet though. This time when I tried them, I thought they tasted maybe a bit like raw asparagus. Kind of made me want to grab a bunch and steam them up ;-)

Along with all the joys of summer, we also have the unpleasantness of snakes. We were being very careful and watchful for snakes while working on the fence. Little did we know that the first rattlesnake we would see would be on mom and dad's back porch during lunch. Thankfully our cats had it cornered and dad had a shovel nearby. I wouldn't mind going the rest of the summer without seeing another one!

Have a wonderful summer and I'll keep you posted on farm life as I finally get free from school to enjoy life on the farm ;-)