Holy Smokes!

John P Weiser · Post by **John P Weiser** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:46 am

Do you guys think a portable air tank like you use to re-inflate tires would be more economical in the long run? I know you can buy long air guns (nozzles) for them. Just a thought.

sierrarainshadow

ihc6480 · Post by **ihc6480** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:52 am

You guys might talk to Tony about leaf blowers around opuntias before you go nuts with compressed air

John P Weiser · Post by **John P Weiser** » Thu May 22, 2008 2:22 am

Hay Tony spill the beans! I get the feeling you have a story to tell. You know the one-"some thing about Opuntias and air blowers".

sierrarainshadow.

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu May 22, 2008 4:31 am

Thanks Bill!

John, I like to use a gas powered leaf vac to clean leaves up around my cactus garden.
It works great and is quick. It will pick up everything but the 3/4 crushed gravel I use as top dressing.
Just be carefull you dont gouge up your prized Isolatocereus dumortieri!!!

But thats another story

One day while sucking up leaves around my big and beautiful Opuntia rufida, That I no longer have

, I started gettin all itchy. Well I was pickin up glochids from the gravel underneath the plant and they were shooting out of the machine anywhere there was the slightest little air leak. I think they may have even been coming out from between the cloth fibers of the bag.

I was covered in them, head to toe, I changed my clothes, threw them away, ripped the plant out that day, dumped it in the trash and swore off opuntias forever!
Opuntia rufidas anyway.

I think Compressed air would work well for cleaning leaves out of spines, But Im not going to try it with anything with glochids.
I do have an air tank that will hold a decent amount of air. I will try it myself when I get the chance.

John P Weiser · Post by **John P Weiser** » Thu May 22, 2008 1:00 pm

Tony

That was a "lesson learned" and not in a good way.

Takes a big man to fess up. And thank your for your words of warning.

sierrarainshadow

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu May 22, 2008 2:51 pm

Well If I prevented anyone else from makin the same mistake then it was worth a little embarasment.
I might add the leaf vac doesnt work well for removing leaves from spines, so I am also curious if peters vacuume idea would work.

Post by **CoronaCactus** » Thu May 22, 2008 2:52 pm

A portable airtank will work fine, but i'd suggest a variable trigger type nozzle, as you can't regulate the pressure from most portable tanks.

mikayak · Post by **mikayak** » Thu May 22, 2008 3:01 pm

Reminded me of being young. My older brother (by 2 years) was ALWAYS beating and picking on me. He was kind of a jerk back then. (Now that we are 50....he's fine!). Anyway, one day I got REAL tired of being abused, so I went out to my patch of Opuntia humifusa, took a couple of nice big, old pads, and went and, basically, mixed them all around in his underwear drawer, then took them out and put them back in the garden.

He was NOT a happy camper for quite a while and, in addition, had NO idea that he had been deliberately "glochided". He NEVER found out why his crotch itched and stung for weeks and I got a BIG laugh out of watching him trying to adjust his pants every minute for a few weeks.

So, the lesson, don't be a bully. The victims WILL get back at you eventually

peterb · Post by **peterb** » Thu May 22, 2008 3:15 pm

The tree trash that's falling on my plants in this windy weather is very small and definitely getting lodged in spines in ways that would indeed take hours with tweezers. So I'm definitely trying the vacuum this weekend after the wind dies down. we'll see.

peterb

Post by **daiv** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:20 pm

mikayak wrote: So, the lesson, don't be a bully. The victims WILL get back at you eventually

Too funny!

Anyway, temps here in MN have been pretty stable. Just hitting the low 70's when the sun is shining and in the low 40s at night. Had a day of 50 and 38 at night, but pretty stable overall. Rain levels are below average so far this year.

The only reall bugger has been the wind. You know how those partly cloudy days can whip up some real wind. Anyway, I was adding eaves to the greenhouse and had to detach part of the roof plastic. Well one big blast of wind and then I had to replace the whole roof piece.

John P Weiser · Post by **John P Weiser** » Thu May 22, 2008 5:46 pm

mikayak Your story is way too funny.

been chuckling about it all day. sierrarainshadow

Post by **CoronaCactus** » Thu May 22, 2008 8:05 pm

mikayak,
He must have been a true PITA, cause that was pure evil genius with the glochids in the underwear drawer

We actually got about a 30-40 minute rainfall this morning...now it's super sunny and back up to temp.

ihc6480 · Post by **ihc6480** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:42 pm

Wow, talk about jock itch