Prickly Pear art 🌵💚

I wanted to do a piece to honor the cactus, Prickly Pear. I adore succulents. After living out in desert with these incredible plants, I appreciate how tough and enduring they never cease to be. I have felt the poison from their spines sooo many times 😆

The Prickly Pear is one of my favorites because it grows wild all across the country. I was encountering these guys in Joshua Tree, California, and they grow here on the beaches of Delaware. I love seemingly extra terrestrial aspects of earth’s biology. This planet never ceases to amaze me 🖤

cherokeepatti · 61-69, F

Prickly pears are an important part of the environment. I saw a great deal of them in very dry regions of Morocco. They are used for fences around farms, fences around railroads to keep people off of the tracks & getting killed, used for fruit etc. In Mexico they burn the stickers off and cook them in oil and eat them, in a sandwich or other ways. Very healthy food.

RebelFox · 36-40, F

@cherokeepatti They’re amazing!! I have not had luck with their fruit 😆 my attempts always leave me with fingers full of spines that can’t be pulled out. I did eat quite a bit of fruit from the barrel cactus though, much easier to harvest

cherokeepatti · 61-69, F

@RebelFox They probably use heavy leather gloves to pick them and then burn off the spines or use a scrubby pad to do it. I had the fruit a couple of times in Morocco. At some tourist spots during the harvest season there would be men with buckets of the fruit selling them for a little over 10 cents each, and they would peel them and hand them to us to eat. I think I ate about 6 of them, spitting the seeds out as we ate them. They were refreshing to eat in the summer when it was hot.