I was at a conference a few years back, and it was hot, and the panelists had long since abandoned their suit coats. I rolled up my sleeves, exposing two arms lacerated by multiflora rose bushes the day before. The gentleman next to me looked at my arms, raised his eye brows and asked: "Pet Bob Cat?"
Of course, the answer was no. Just multi-flora rose bushes and two raccoons underneath them, but I waved it off and made it sound like I had been planting out a lot of rose bushes in the back yard rather than hacking them down with a machete. You never know how a government lawyer from New York City will react if he finds you spend your weekends with dogs, raccoons and machetes. I have learned to let some mysteries be.
If you dig much in the eastern U.S., and you follow the dogs into hedges, as I do, then you are going to end up with a certain number of embedded thorns in your arms, hands, and shoulders. I even have one at the very back of my neck, right at the hairline, that seems to be permanent. Some thorns work their way out, but a lot do not and some end up going in so deep that skin closes over the top leaving a small hard knot on top. If the thorn went in at foot or hand, where the muscle moves a lot, it would work itself out quickly, or be pulled out quickly, but the ones that jab you in the forearms are more likely to remain if not found, and skin will eventually close over them if they are deep enough. You would think the body would eventually absorb them somehow, and maybe it does, but it takes months and months, and by then I have a few more thorns augered in, so the load seems to stay about the same.
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