Saguaro festival

Last Sat I went with my friend Ann to a festival/workshop where we learned how to harvest saguaro fruits. First we made the sticks that you use to harvest the fruit out of saguaro ribs and greasewood. We lashed them together with bailing wire. Mine was great, except when we were out picking, the top broke off. When we came back, we boiled the fruit down into syrup. It takes a loooooonnnnnnng time since you have to first boil the fruit, then strain the seeds/pulp out, and then boil it again until it is thick. It took even longer than it probably should have since the process was being done on camp stoves. This was all taught the traditional Native American way. They sang a song before we were able to go and harvest the fruit.

So, Ann and I went out this week and tried to harvest the fruit ourselves. We used pool cleaning poles with bolts stuck in the ends - much easier since they telescoped out and there were no issues with them breaking. (So much for the Native American way!) It took us two hours to harvest a 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket of fruit. This is a very long time compared to the 30 min it takes use to get the 2 5 gal buckets of prickley pear fruit! Not as easy as it looks! Some of that fruit is really stuck up there! When it does come down, we were trying to catch it with the bucket. It was an adventure to say the least!