Nopales.  It’s cactus.  It’s available in the grocery stores in cans or in the produce section . . with all the needles removed.  Or, we can go out in the woods and find it, remove the needles ourselves, go the emergency room because we end up with a million of them in our hands and it’s free and we know it’s fresh.

I had been telling Vince I wanted to get some but when we were out with a group last week, we were talking about it and one of the guys was telling us how to clean the needles off and how to cook it so over the weekend, we decided to go find some.  We don’t have to go far because there’s cactus in our flower beds and there’s hardly a spot we look that we don’t see some amount of cactus.  We were looking for an excuse to go out in the woods on the RTV but I didn’t want to go back in the part where the cows were.  This guy still doesn’t seem real fond of us.

Vince assured me that the cows were probably somewhere else on the land and we wouldn’t even see them.  Goes to show how much I can trust Vince!

There are two problems.  First, there’s no cattle guards and the only way we can get out of the pasture is to stop, get out of the RTV, open the gate, drive through, go back and close the gate.  So, if a cow or a bull, or both are after you, who wants to stop and get out of the RTV?  Not I said the woman who’s scared of the big black bull!

The second problem is that Mike, the owner of the cows, goes looking for them on his RTV and he always has treats for them so they associate the sound of an RTV with someone trying to find them and having goodies for them so they run towards the sound of the RTV.  They should know the difference in the sound of a Kubota RTV and whatever brand Mike has!!  Goofy bovine.

So, Vince convinced me that it was safe to go out in the pasture.  The very first stop we made, I looked up and here come the cows towards us . . full speed ahead . . mooing.  That’s what they do when they want to be sure we see them so we’ll go get treats for them.  They stand at the edge of the fence, face the house and moo and moo til someone comes out and gives them treats.

They’re walking quickly towards us . . I’m screaming “We’re going to die and no one is even going to know we’re out here!”  We got back in the RTV and took off.

If you enlarge the picture, you might can see them coming towards us.  When we started driving, they started running.  I felt like a bandit shooting at the good guys as I was leaning out the side of the RTV trying to get a picture of the cows running after us.

We made a few turns, not knowing which path they would take and we went to the gate that we thought they might not go to, and sure enough, we were able to get out and lock the gate back without  having to deal with them.  When we were headed back towards the house, there they were at the gate we had originally planned to get through.

Lucky for us there are plenty of cactus in the areas where the cows are not!

You may get tired of me saying it but look at that picture . . the flowers, the trees, the cows . . this place is so perfect for us!

We were out working in the yard.  Vince was doing something in the back and I was pulling weeds in the front.  He came around to the front and said “Get your camera and come see!”  I started with my 20 question routine . .

• Is something wrong?
• Are the chickens ok?
• Is there a critter back there?
• Did a chicken escape?
• Is it a snake?
• Is it going to scare me?

Just get your camera and follow me!

• Does it bite?
• Are you sure it isn’t going to scare me?
• Does in involve cows?

When I got to the back, Vince said he was walking by this pile of dirt and he noticed a hole that hadn’t been there.  I tell you . . I mostly think he doesn’t pay attention to details but I’m obviously wrong.

Vince said he squatted down to see what was in the hole and saw eyeballs looking back at him.

It’s some kind of a huge lizard . . I don’t think it’s a horned toad but I really don’t know.  It didn’t have any real “horns” on its head but it kinda has spines down its back.  It wasn’t real fat like horned toads (which really are lizards) but I think they puff up when they need to scare a predator and maybe she just didn’t feel that threatened.  We don’t look very scary, do we?  Maybe she thought we hadn’t seen her and she was trying to blend in with the dirt.

If you enlarge the picture (this is right back by the tail), there’s an egg!  There were several but I couldn’t see how many and I really didn’t want to disturb the critter.

After a while, we walked back past the dirt pile and he/she had completely covered the hole . . you’d never know it was there, and we saw him/her scurrying off towards the shop.  Great . . probably to move into my sewing room! 

So, I’m wondering, did she lay eggs and she’s done and they’ll hatch on their own or did she just run out for a bite to eat and she covered the hole to keep us away, and she’ll come back and remove the dirt to get back in?  Sounds from this article like they do lay their eggs and then leave them alone to hatch and dig themselves out.

Don’t we see the neatest things!  What were the chances that Vince would happen by that dirt pile just when she had dug the hole and he would notice the hole and we would see the eggs and then we’d see that she had covered the hole and see her leaving at breakneck speed?  Now I want to know how many eggs she laid but I’m not going to disturb the nest.  I want to know how long it takes for them to hatch.  I want to see the baby lizards!