Back in 2009 I made two trips to Cibolo Creek Ranch near Marfa, the first time to learn about taking pictures with Wyman Meinzer, the second to plant cactus gardens for the ranch with their native cactus.
On one of those trips they had just grated their roads. This picture doesn’t show it, but rocks and plants had been uprooted and were lining the edge of the road. One of those plants was a yucca seedling, a plant about the size of what you would find in a one-gallon pot at a nursery. Well, I couldn’t just leave it there in harm’s way, right? So it came home with me, and I planted it where it had plenty of room to grow. I thought.
Big yuccas grow in the Marfa area where the ranch is located; I think Yucca faxoniana is this variety native to the area. But I didn’t think about how big it was going to get in my garden compared to the wide open spaces of the ranch. So now in 2025, it has pretty much filled up its space. And then some.
Unfortunately, the Cylindropuntia leptocaulis, the Christmas tree cholla, growing right by it was pretty much filling up its space, too.
And, equally unfortunately, weeds had grown up between the two, and I wanted them out. Which meant I would have to squirm my way between the two plants, rocks, and other cactus to get the weeds.
Which is a little tricky when you consider the super sharp pointed ends on the yucca’s leaves and the spines and fragile segments on the cholla and how close together the plants are.
I cut off some of the cholla branches in the way, and squatted down, pushed the yucca leaves aside, and leaned over to reach the weeds. All of a sudden I had a piercing pain on my ear! I hollered out and sat up. Cookie rushed over to see what was wrong! Arlo followed her to see if I was okay. I felt the top of my ear, and it was bleeding! I couldn’t see exactly what was going on, so I called Sheila to come look at my ear and see what needed to be done.
The bleeding stopped, and nothing had stayed in my ear. The sharp tip of the yucca had gone straight through cleanly and just left a mark where it had pierced my ear. If I had had a stray earring handy, I guess I could have put the piercing to good use! But I didn’t, and alas, neither of us thought to take a picture of the wound. All we could think of was, Whaaatt? How did I manage to do this?
Well, more to the point now-no pun intended- is how do I keep it from happening again? Because weeds will always need to be pulled. First off, I blunted the tips of all the yucca leaves in the way for weeding and cut back some of the leaves to the trunk of the yucca.
Then I pruned the cholla back severely, which I do every three or four years anyway to keep it from taking over the garden.
So, my piercing is healed, offending pointed tips are clipped, cholla is severely pruned, weeds are gone-for now, anyway-and all is well.
For now. Maybe next time I will pierce something else. The other ear?
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