Occasionally on field trips, one stumbles
upon something in nature, which gives you
pause. Carrying out heavy bags of Pennsylvanian
epoch, Archaeocidaris spiny sea urchins,
from below the Brownwood Lake Spillway, was
far more than tiring. It was totally exhausting.
What a pleasant surprise, on my first trip
out, to see this "heart-shaped"
cactus there to express its thorny love.
I have no idea what caused this unusual growth
from a normal almost round cactus pad. Perhaps
some limb or twig rested on top of the cactus
pad as it grew, then was blown or knocked
off leaving the indentation in the top, to
form a heart.
I showed the heart-shaped Prickly Pear cactus
pad to PMNS 2003-2004 President, David Wolf, who had invited me on this dig. I commented
that if sent to someone else, at Valentine's
Day, it might send a "mixed signal".
After we both laughed, David commented "love
hurts". That seemed appropriate. I photographed
the cactus and unbeknownst to me at the time,
David harvested it and brought it home. Therefore,
I was able to shoot a better picture of it
using my new eArt Scanning technique, than
the photograph. I then copyrighted the picture
and comment, and we have put them on Tee
Shirts, as shown on this page.
The Tee shirts are available in the PMNS Gift Shop. Just click here to go to them.