Last week Monday I went to donate blood at the Stanford Blood Center - something I try to do every 8 weeks. I'd brought Kali along because she loves nothing more than riding around in a car. When I was done with the donation, we went for a walk around the park across the street.

About 5 minutes into the walk,all of a sudden my eyes got wide as I realized I was staring at a HUGE patch of cleavers along the edge of the sidewalk! But it was growing around a very thorny, sprawling rose bush! Great protection for the plant, but not such great protecton for my bare hands!

I ended up spending TWO HOURS pulling up those cleavers, so I could blend them up in my vitamix and put the juice into Kali's food. I did this last year when they were in season, and it really did seem to keep her tumors from getting to big... but I ran out. So I was determined to pull up as many of these cleavers as I could, from that thorny patch!

This is Kali, as she sat there watching different dogs go by while I weeded away : D.

Note to self: Keep leather gloves and clippers in the car from now on!

Some information about Cleavers / Catchweed / Stickyweed:

Before I attacked the patch...

After I was done.... I didn't have garden clippers, so I used the scissors that was in my car, to cut these pokey branches back a bit.

Damn, I feel like I shoulda gotten paid for this!

People must have been wondering what the heck I was doing, pulling up these weeds in the park. It must have been obvious I didn't work there. But eh, whatever. I don't know why the gardener for the park didn't already pull them up, but I imagine nobody would MIND that I took these weeds... unless someone else was growing them for medicinal purposes!

I should note that YES, I did wash these greens really well, beause I know the chance some dog may have peed on them at some point, could be fairly high. But I also know Kali won't know the difference!

I put the cleavers juice into the bowl I use to mix all the dog food together. None of the dogs seemed to mind it! They all got the rabies vaccinations at the same time (and 3 of my 4 dogs developed growths or an increase in growth size after). So I figured it can't hurt to give the stuff to all of them.