You may remember that we have citrus trees in our yard and have enjoyed the bounty in whole, juice and liquor forms.

We also have a mesquite tree with lots of seed pods. 

I knew native peoples used mesquite as a food source so I studied it. There is a wide variance of flavor in the seed pods of mesquite trees.  The resulting flour has a strong flavor and needs to be mixed with other flours to neutralize it.   Assuming I liked the taste of our seed pods,  I would have to find a place to mill it.  Since I do almost no baking I’m not going to pursue it.   If COVID-19 still has us home this time next year, I might rethink that decision for a new experience.

This year I chose to learn about harvesting the fruit given by our prickly pear cactus.   There are dozens of varieties of prickly pear and we have these two in our yard.

This one has lovely yellow blossoms.  It had fruit last year but didn’t develop any this year.  

I don’t know if skipping a year is normal or if it is because we have water sprayed this cactus several times to reduce dactylopius coccus, a scale insect.  This parasitic insect is useful in making red dye.

The first step was to pick the magenta fruit, also called “tuna.”  That is no easy task given that prickly pear cactus have tiny hairlike prickles called glochids that stick to  everything, especially skin.

Even using the precaution of metal tongs and gloves I still got some prickles in several places on my body!  (Twenty four hours later I think they are finally gone.)

Once gathered, I used a culinary blow torch to burn off the glochids.

Then I passed the fruit back and forth between bowls to knock off any remaining prickles.

I boiled the fruit and then let it steep for several hours.

The directions said to mash and then strain but the skin was too tough.  I resorted to puncturing the skin and then kneeding the juice out.

From four and a half pounds of fruit I got four cups of prickly pear juice!  An equal amount of sugar goes into the pot to simmer and then cool.

While we were waiting for it to cool, we tried some fresh prickly pear fruit, eating only the insides.  I thought it tasted like watermelon.  Randy, who doesn’t like watermelon, thought it tasted bitter and didn’t like it.

A couple hours later we bottled our prickly pear syrup and enjoyed prickly pear margaritas!  I don’t like plain margaritas but thought the added syrup made it taste good!

So what else might we be eating from our backyard?  Not this cute little bunny enjoying the cool mulch under the grapefruit tree.

Not our favorite quail parents and babies!   The babies start out like ping pong balls with hair.  As they grow, the family seems to shrink from 15 babies down to 5 or 6.  They have a high mortality rate.  Even though both parents are always present and seem to do their best to keep track of the brood some must get left behind in the constant movement.

We won’t be eating this guy either. Does anyone eat lizards unless it is absolutely necessary?  He is fun to watch as he does his push-ups each day.

We haven’t checked whether the seeds pods on our pineapple palm are edible.   Pineapple palm is indicative of the appearance, not the fruit.

These palms have nothing for us – no coconuts, no dates – nothing!  What’s up with that?