This must be the better half.

This neatly sliced prickly pear is too silly to rant about. There is another just like it. Two others were not sliced, as if, after the first two, someone realized that there was more to the roadside meadow than combustible dry grass. The prickly pear were put out there just last winter. They each extended only a single pad half a foot or so above grade, so were obscured by the grass.

Realistically, the damage is minimal and tolerable here. The priority of the crew who performed the vegetation management was to cut down all the combustibles. They did an efficient job of it. They did not expect to encounter anything that had been intentionally installed out there, or even any desirable vegetation. Besides, this prickly pear will recover as if nothing happened.

Unfortunately, damage caused by weed whackers is rarely so innocuous. Weed…