Out on the flats the ground reads as empty until you actually walk it: creosote, bursage, and a wash that ran hard for twenty minutes last August and has been dry ever since. South Tree Service-Cactus Removal works that terrain, trimming and taking down trees, pulling cactus that has crowded a drive or a doorway, and hauling away stumps, spines and limbs. Removing a cactus is careful, unglamorous work, and getting it out without leaving glochids and root behind is the whole point. What is left is open, usable ground and a yard that stops fighting whoever lives there. The ranges on the horizon go pink at the end of the day, and the place finally looks the way it should from the road.