Help with blackberry bramble & gloves

Hi All,

(My first post! Woot!)

One pointy corner of my fence (think like the point of a piece of pie) is right against a blackberry bramble that the county seems to be using as an approximately 12’ barrier between a walking/biking corridor and the yards of the houses that line the corridor.

I’m looking for help in two things.

One is glove recommendations to deal with chopping back the canes each year. I have small hands with stubby fingers (usually between a woman’s small, that best fits my fingers and medium that best fit my palm) and pretty beefy and short forearms (the widest part being 32cm). I can’t for the life of me find any kind of gauntlet type gloves to fit me! I’m figuring I’ll have to do some customization to get anything to work. Any recommendations on thorn resistant gloves and ways to modify them for my particular hand/arm variation would be very welcome! I do very basic sewing but I haven’t done any leather-based sewing.

Two, whether you all think these berries would be safe to harvest considering the following details: I know one neighbor uses pesticides to keep their yard from being encroached on. This touches about 3 feet of shared fence. The other neighbor does yearly chopping back. It seems the county keeps the blackberries off the walking path through a combination of a heavy mowing twice a year. I haven’t seen any spraying in the two years I’ve been here. So, considering those factors, do you think, if I train a small bit of the blackberries, away from the pesticide fence and with a “spray barrier” to minimize drift, that we could harvest a bit safely?

Thanks so much for looking at my post!
I am so glad I found this community and I look forward to learning a bunch from you all!

Welcome to Permies, Jonah!

I have no opinion about how to find gloves that fit you well as I have hands larger than most men, but these are the gloves I use for taming our wild bramble.

I would harvest those berries, but just leave a big gap between where I pick and where they spray.

My recommendation is for more than just gloves.

I use brush cloth pants and jacket from Schaeffer Outfitters.  15 oz cotton canvas.  what means is...i walk through roses, barberry, brambles, russian olive, and the fabric sheds thorns like a duck sheds water.  if i want to push brush back, I simply walk into it and sit down on it.

the gloves i use are called fence menders gauntlet gloves from duluth trading.  it took me a while to spend the money on these, but once i did, i'll tell you, i'm glad i did.  sizes run small.  I had been working a job cutting back a range of thorny brush.  the gloves i had been using were not doing the job, mostly leather work gloves from local hardware stores.  when what you have been using is leaving you dissatisfied, you go looking.  what i found was from duluth.  If anyone has suggestions that are better/cheaper, I'll be all ears...but i will have to say, i do not believe i would be willing to sacrifice performance.

there are rose pruning sleeve guards that generally go on over your thumb, under gloves, and are intended to protect up to your elbow.  i'll guess you'll find that heavyweight canvas or leather does the job best.

"Rose pruning gloves" are what I use, and they work great! I definitely like the ones with long "sleeves" to protect more of my arm when I'm reaching into the Himalayan blackberries.

I have a pair of these cowhide gloves in size medium, and they are fantastic at keeping the thorns out. My hands are more on the small size, and these mediums are a bit too big for me. I guess the medium is MEN'S medium, rather than women's medium! If I were to order them again, I'd order size small. But, they do the job.

What I often do is put the rose pruning glove on my non-dominant left hand, and wear normal gardening gloves on my right. I can use my pruning shears a bit easier with normal gloves, and then move the blackberries with my left hand. I keep the right-handed leather glove in my pocket, so I can always put it on if I need to move/touch bramble with both hands. When I'm picking berries, I do the same thing. I put the leather glove on my non-left hand so it can move the bramble away while I pick berries with my right hand.

I also have a pair of these other rose pruning gloves in size small. They happen to be a bit too tight for my hands. These seem to be sized for women, so their size small is small for a woman, which is apparently smaller than "man's size small." But, they also get the job done. If you order these, probably go for the size medium.

Welcome!

You've got some good suggestions, but I was going to say if you have a pair of normal leather gloves you like and it's just the gauntlet you're missing, consider welding sleeves. They're usually pretty easy to find and (IMHO) not necessarily pricey.

Hi there,
I use welding gloves when pruning bramble.
I've heard that if you cut it back about four years in a row, it disappears. And that goats or pigs will gladly do the pruning/tilling job for you, if you just help them a hand in the beginning by initially mowing it down.
Hope this helps!

I have given up on gloves at this point. I used to try to find some good ones, spent sooo much money. Now I just get the cheapest ones when the big box stores have them on sale. I have some blackberries with huge barbs. I think chainmaille or welding gloves with a thick jacket.  I generally am just really careful and just accept it's gonna happen. Usually I end up with them on my shoulders or in my hair rather than my hands so maybe it's just a skill issue.

I have been using regular, calfskin gloves for the brambles, blackberries and shrub, and they work but you do have to be careful to not grab wrong because the thorns will penetrate if you grab them. I’m going to check out some of these suggestions, I bet I could work a lot faster.

Nina, I wish the pigs and goats would clean up either of those things without having to be penned on top of them! In my limited experience, neither animal will bother with them if ANYTHING else is available.

I'll second Christopher's idea, along with long sleeves.
Another place where you can get that kind of gloves is with some beekeepers suppliers outfit: Many are made of kid leather, so they allow for more dexterity. Since youngsters get into beekeeping, they will have all the sizes.
https://www.temu.com/ul/kuiper/un9.html?subj=goods-un&_bg_fs=1&_p_jump_id=894&_x_vst_scene=adg&goods_id=601099525708792&sku_id=17592257105123&adg_ctx=a-47fcfbea~c-9856c1a1~f-b63f09c2&_x_ads_sub_channel=shopping&_p_rfs=1&_x_ns_prz_type=-1&_x_ns_sku_id=17592257105123&mrk_rec=1&_x_ads_channel=google&_x_gmc_account=647900107&_x_login_type=Google&_x_ads_account=1919904652&_x_ads_set=21014167186&_x_ads_id=159594165358&_x_ads_creative_id=690396786669&_x_ns_source=g&_x_ns_gclid=CjwKCAiA29auBhBxEiwAnKcSqp-eCg78GXsyOomXjMkOUTJP-MHo1RmCxSavzghk0Tv9wERL-7RL_BoCw7gQAvD_BwE&_x_ns_placement=&_x_ns_match_type=&_x_ns_ad_position=&_x_ns_product_id=17592257105123&_x_ns_target=&_x_ns_devicemodel=&_x_ns_wbraid=Cj8KCQiAuNGuBhCZARIuAEh-cTFAyxeICNeEcRNcifJwPdih9Jn_WF3uE4Ss4LvhAwVUdScs_FQsiaMaFhoCyq0&_x_ns_gbraid=0AAAAAo4mICHqxJUoE_REOfuxeiJsH3MbA&_x_ns_targetid=pla-2276827329338&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA29auBhBxEiwAnKcSqp-eCg78GXsyOomXjMkOUTJP-MHo1RmCxSavzghk0Tv9wERL-7RL_BoCw7gQAvD_BwE
This one, from Temu, has the advantage of being really cheap. there is a length and a width for proper sizing too.
Good luck to you. And Welcome to Permies!

I also use heavy welding gloves for blackberries, though only on my left hand (pruners in my right hand). They are inexpensive, have a thick gauntlet, and come in S.M and L. You want to get the thick, split hide ones, not the soft ones used for MIG or TIG welding. I also often grab the canes in the throat of loppers and pull them out. I spent 11 years tending a 5 acre property where battling blackberries  and poison oak was at least 60% of my job and that is what worked best for me.

I would encourage anyone and everyone to resist buying anything from Temu. Cheap comes with a steep cost to the environment.

I do something a little different but it works really well for myself.

I wear two pairs of gloves. The inner pair is a thin wool liner glove. Kind of like something you might wear in fall or early winter.



I then have a pair of cheap knit work gloves over them to deal with the abrasions. I don't notice that I have two pairs of gloves on and I believe the inner glove gives enough space from the knit glove that the pointy end of thorns that might slip through the knit don't touch the skin.



I just don't like the stiffness of leather or the other resistant gloves. This gives me dexterity and protection.

I hate to see items posted from Amazon, and worse, Temu. (Y'all know why...)
Go to your local farm store, or a good hardware store and you'll find some. Lacking that try arborist supply outlets, on-line.

Dane Geld wrote:My recommendation is for more than just gloves.

I use brush cloth pants and jacket from Schaeffer Outfitters.  15 oz cotton canvas.  what means is...i walk through roses, barberry, brambles, russian olive, and the fabric sheds thorns like a duck sheds water.  if i want to push brush back, I simply walk into it and sit down on it.

the gloves i use are called fence menders gauntlet gloves from duluth trading.  it took me a while to spend the money on these, but once i did, i'll tell you, i'm glad i did.  sizes run small.  I had been working a job cutting back a range of thorny brush.  the gloves i had been using were not doing the job, mostly leather work gloves from local hardware stores.  when what you have been using is leaving you dissatisfied, you go looking.  what i found was from duluth.  If anyone has suggestions that are better/cheaper, I'll be all ears...but i will have to say, i do not believe i would be willing to sacrifice performance.

there are rose pruning sleeve guards that generally go on over your thumb, under gloves, and are intended to protect up to your elbow.  i'll guess you'll find that heavyweight canvas or leather does the job best.

Yikes!
$70 for fence mender gloves!
$165 for brush jackets!
Sure is costly finding clothing & gloves that do the trick when working with nasty thorns & tangled brush.
I’ve just learned over the years how to work with wild roses & blackberry bushes - how to clip them, where to grab & pull. Using rakes to help. And I always wear a hat, long sleeves & pants & high boots! Yes I get scratched up but I’m getting better at it!

As far as gloves, I had trouble finding leather gloves that would last more than 3-4 months. Constantly searching for either cheapies or spending a little extra on deer hide, but the results are always the same.
This past November I got a pair of Vermont Gloves. Made in USA!!! Goat skin… supposed to stay softer and not crack. I got the beeswax and oil too. They’ve been awesome all winter. They are pretty expensive, but if I spend $50 every year on some that fall apart, I’m willing to spend the extra cash on a pair that will last.
They have good tutorials on their site that tell you how to care for them.
Good luck!

https://vermontglove.com/

Wow, you guys make me feel like a lightweight.

I haven't needed to traipse through brambles, but I have needed to chop nasty 6 ft tall bull thistles with stems as thick as a quarter and awful little thorns.

I have small hands, too, so it's often hard for me to find gloves that fit. The palms might be okay, but then the fingers are so long I just can't do anything useful or dextrous with my hands in gloves, so I end up taking them on and off and on and off. My most recent pair of gloves has been the best!

$10 goatskin gloves off Amazon, from https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B536YLM1. (Hopefully that link works the way I think it's supposed to.) These gloves have lasted through so much, although I did tear the fingers recently by doing hours and hours of digging where my middle finger kept scraping along asphalt, and that wore through the glove there. But for $10 gloves, they've been amazing. Comfy, fit really well to my hand, and it actually feels like I can do something useful. Plus they breathe well but still keep out dirt, except what falls down the wrist.

Goatskin is amazing. With goatskin gloves, I full-on grabbed bull thistle stems and didn't get pricked except by chance once or twice. But I haven't yet tried reaching into blackberry canes...

I did also buy Dickie's Stretch Duck Double Front Carpenter pants a few years ago, which cost way more than I usually spend on pants (dollars at the thrift store), and those were thick enough to withstand thorns and kneeling and all sorts of garden work.

Edited to add: I've had these goatskin gloves since Novmber 2022, so they've been going strong for more than a year. If I hadn't been scraping them along asphalt, they'd probably not have ripped at all! As it is, I need to repair them... oops.

Zachary Bertuzzi wrote:As far as gloves, I had trouble finding leather gloves that would last more than 3-4 months. Constantly searching for either cheapies or spending a little extra on deer hide, but the results are always the same.
This past November I got a pair of Vermont Gloves. Made in USA!!! Goat skin… supposed to stay softer and not crack. I got the beeswax and oil too. They’ve been awesome all winter. They are pretty expensive, but if I spend $50 every year on some that fall apart, I’m willing to spend the extra cash on a pair that will last.
They have good tutorials on their site that tell you how to care for them.
Good luck!

https://vermontglove.com/

Wow! And made in the USA 🇺🇸 Something I look for! These gloves are pricey too, but my guess is they last and last and last!
I’ve been concerned about brambles & thorns but I’m also concerned to have a good padded palm as my hands have suffered from all the heavy garden work I’ve been doing!

I assume these are Himalayans and not the native blackberry? Forget gloves (as the primary defence). What you need is reach and leverage -- use loppers!

And OMG I can't imagine I'm telling war stories, but ... years ago on Vancouver Island we would drop down a sheet of 4x8 plywood in a patch and pick blackberries like crazy. Spiny plants think big; I suggest you do the same.

Between carpentry, demolition, drystone walls, laying pipe, rock gardens, pruning (thorny or spiny or sharp as a knife (split bamboo is WICKED sharp, with a sort of micro sawtooth edge: the bamboo slivers under the fingernails stories are for real, there are few things worse) and with hammer blows and the like, my hands are altogether pretty gnarly. I only use leather gloves when it's dry. (and I live in the maritime NW, so that means summer)  I like the nitrile gloves with dipped fingers and palms, and I go to Johnson Creek Hardware (Portland) when I am back in my old haunts and buy a bag of ten pairs, which can last me a couple years if I am lucky. You can easily pick up a nail or a ripe raspberry while wearing them, and they hold up fine in water, and they cut the cold a bit- good at least to the mid 30's if you're active. In colder weather I use the heavier knit gloves with the dipped plastic palms and finger tips. They're not warm enough for a Continental winter though. (I've lived in most of the Great Lakes states) The only solution I have is to get the building framed and sheathed before the snow flies. Heavy leather cloves are pretty good for stone wall work, and concrete or wood demolition/salvage, but rain will make them shrink and harden, and then fall apart. I have used war surplus ski trooper mitts doing framing carpentry in the middle of winter in Oregon: with the optional trigger finger feature you can operate a pneumatic nail gun trigger just fine. I live walking distance from the biggest hardware/lumber/garden center in Eugene because my late wife was working there, so she bought this house and when I inherited it from her I put in the sweat equity to render it habitable. The store recently had a big sale with specials, and the tool companies are all getting their own gloves made in China in their company colors. I was actually impressed, and I found the Makita gloves WONDERFUL, and the Milwaukee gloves ain't bad. They fit me like a glove! (??) So keep your eyes peeled for new choices. If the arthritis in your hands gets bad, get one of those plug-in paraffin baths, fire it up and stick your hands in while you watch youtube or whatever.

Jonah,, having fought a lot of battles with blackberry brambles and the ever hateful wild rose bushes, Honey Locust & Osage Orange, I highly recommend heavy duty cowhide gloves. Buy them a size bigger than what fits and use a cheap pair of Jersey gloves inside. The Jersey gloves help prevent blisters by absorbing the sweat and when they get soiled, swap them out...I also recommend this tool... (cuts best on the "up" stroke) Eye protection is highly suggested
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/groundwork-bush-axe-1064064?store=144&cid=Shopping-Google-Local_Feed&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_campaign=&utm_content=Local_Feed&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA29auBhBxEiwAnKcSqnl40bMVI9zHD54lKa3JNMj__XVnlLC7kfuoNaszpvvLECy9q8UkiRoCuWwQAvD_BwE
This tool will take and hold a scary sharp edge...Be careful

For those with small hands, Women's Work gloves come in appropriate sizes. They have gloves for brambles and I think their gloves are made in America
Women own the business.
https://womanswork.com/

As someone who trains the Hymalayan blackberries for production.   Yes double gloves. you will frequently feel the need to pull off the outer gauntlet glove for fine control and whiteout the cuff of the inner glove broken off thorns will get into the gauntlet an into your wrist.  
As for training the vines:  Select vines on the safe side of the fence and train it to the top of the fence.  The goal of the vine is to root the tip of the vine as far from its start as posible so this time of year watch for a tip growing down to the ground and cut it off unles you want to start a new crown.  Some vines will try to fruit a second year but usually it is best to cut them back after fruiting is finished.  I use pole pruners first, then loppers and then hand pruners.  This time of year wit clear weather I am removing dead vines and repairing my trellises which used to be fences.  I only keep vines that are more than one inch in diameter now and selectively train the best new vines into the trellis during the summer.

There are useful things you can do with "Himalayan" black berries but first let's clarify what we're talking about. In botanic Latin the culprit is Rubus (the bramble berry genus in the Rosaceae) armeniacus (="from Armenia") WTF! WHY IS IT HIMALYAN BLACKBERRY? Well, Luther Burbank got the first seed in the US from the British Forestry Experimental Station at Dehra Dun in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. Not so much a botanist as a marketing hotshot , he realized that Armenians weren't very popular and that name would not make him much $. But Himalayan! Exotic and Big and well-known! Within 3-4 years the California Blackberry growers association was saying stuff like "UNMANAGEABLE!" Now, it's here and it will certainly outlast us. But one thing to consider: besides large berries, the plant has large seeds, large enough that the majority will not pass thru a Foley Food Mill (a CLASSIC!) Merely take a big pot with an inch of water, bring it to a boil, then fill it with black berries, cover, nd turn the heat to low and let it sit for 15-20 min. and turn it off, leave it covered until cool and run the soft-cooked berries thru a Foley mill = a half-pot + of beautiful purple pulp. Make sorbet, sauce, a gelatin, jam, put between layers in a cake, whatever. I brought a potful to a NorCal potluck and arrived at the party just as the ice cream maker had matured a batch of vanilla. It was very well received. #2: medicine: black berry root can stop severe diarrhea, and, say, keep a desperately sick child alive. The flowers are good for honey production. And I regularly put quantities of cut canes into compost. I don't have numbers, but it seems to have a pretty good Nitrogen content and adds what you could term "Green" and "Brown" in a reasonable balance.
I cut the canes with hand shears- Rotating handle Felcos fit me best, and I can use both righties and lefties,  US-made orchard loppers, and Japanese long-reach pruners. Sometimes I pile the cut canes in a pretty tight pile and take the Hickock Orchard Loppers and just cut the loaf to bits and fork it into the compost pile. N.B: Don't let them dry before they go to the compost pile, they won't compost as well. I had the luck to purchase a few British made brush hooks before the "Full Monty" happened and the British tool manufacturing tanked. I can take a thicket down pretty quick with the equivalent of a curved machete on a four foot + handle. You might get lucky in Mexico and find a blacksmith who knows what to do with a leaf spring from a truck and then you can bring it back and stick it on an ash or hawthorn pole handle. I have what would be called a billhook in English, which I made a short handle for with a bit of Scot's Broom, and that's good for blackberries or if you're going to demonstrate how a foot soldier can deal with a mounted Knight at a reenactment event. I don't recommend machetes for blackberries because the curve can slide out of the cut so easily. A hook-tip blade is great because a slight inward pull really bites into the canes. I have found that rapidly growing first year canes have a perfect balance of nutrients, water, nitrogen and carbon for a single-input compost. (well, y'all should put some mineral soil in too, for proper humus formation to happen, and of course "compost activator #1 (AKA "Vitamin P") I know the tools that others are talking about, but I've found that lighter blades and sharpening as I work with a scythe stone, as well as curved blades that mean I don't have to swing as fast, just give ever so slight a pull, and I get 'er done just fine. (I'm going to be 73 this year, eh? ) So- Hida Tool in Berkeley, and there's a mail order outfit in Kentucky that has lots of European tools- Dutch, German, Austrian, Italian. blanking on the name but a search on "Garden Tools Mail Order Kentucky" ought to get you there. They have excellent sharpening stones too. (the "other half" of the cutting tool") I'll find it for y'all.

The company name I was trying to recall is "Earth Tools", they have unique stock, mostly European, up to and including walk behind tractors. Last year I got a very nice Italian Scythe blade and a fine sharpening stone from them. And I realized, thinking on it, that a big reason I use what would be considered meager gloves by most in the discussion is that I'm often using blades with a curve or a hook tip, and I can pick up a cut bramble and place it in a pile, and then grab a fork and pick up the whole pile, load the garden cart, take the brambles to the compost, put them on the pile, take the loppers and leave no piece longer than a foot, and I'm seldom touching a bramble with my hands. Or I happen to be doing a recon with only a Kama- that'll cut a blackberry cane easy! Or I'm just a tough ol' gander too lazy to find the gloves. and then there's "If you don't draw blood you're not doing it right!" Dunno- I worked clearing blackberry brambles in the back of my half-acre today without gloves and I don't recall more than a drop or two of blood, and that was on my arm- a sunny day f'sure. I did gather some good blackberry root for medicine too, put it in a tub and scrubbed the dirt off with a brush and it's drying now. Nice sunny day. "The climes they are a'changin'

Cheap welding gloves are good to have if you can find a pair that fits. Most bottled gas/welding suppliers have them with their logo by the counter.

I just cleared a 80’x20’ area around our young chestnuts with just a pair of atlas knit gloves and chaps. I walked down the canes with my boots then grabbed the base near the root and pulled.

If you take them out with roots and there’s less to deal with next season.

My raspberries go through anything so far. Maybe these?

John Duffy wrote:Jonah,, having fought a lot of battles with blackberry brambles and the ever hateful wild rose bushes, Honey Locust & Osage Orange, I highly recommend heavy duty cowhide gloves. Buy them a size bigger than what fits and use a cheap pair of Jersey gloves inside. The Jersey gloves help prevent blisters by absorbing the sweat and when they get soiled, swap them out...I also recommend this tool... (cuts best on the "up" stroke) Eye protection is highly suggested
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/groundwork-bush-axe-1064064?store=144&cid=Shopping-Google-Local_Feed&utm_medium=Google&utm_source=Shopping&utm_campaign=&utm_content=Local_Feed&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiA29auBhBxEiwAnKcSqnl40bMVI9zHD54lKa3JNMj__XVnlLC7kfuoNaszpvvLECy9q8UkiRoCuWwQAvD_BwE
This tool will take and hold a scary sharp edge...Be careful

Ha! How about that: I picked on at a rummage sale thinking it might be useful but I wasn't sure what it was! Thanks!

Joe Wamsley wrote:I have given up on gloves at this point. I used to try to find some good ones, spent sooo much money. Now I just get the cheapest ones when the big box stores have them on sale. I have some blackberries with huge barbs. I think chainmaille or welding gloves with a thick jacket.  I generally am just really careful and just accept it's gonna happen. Usually I end up with them on my shoulders or in my hair rather than my hands so maybe it's just a skill issue.

Yes me too -- I grew up alongside them brambles in the south of England and lots of rain! Massive trees to a small kid. I can scratch up my legs and not notice I am dripping blood 😆 but they're nasty when they get under the nail! Once I've been attacked this way,  I usually swear then go get my thick rubber plumbing gloves that would be found in a Harbour Master type store (Princess Auto in Canada) which can be had on sale for under $10

I use a petrol hedge trimmer to get control over the area initially. Once you have it slightly tamed, then switch to regular hand trimming with secateurs. I have a couple of huge wild patches near me that I harvest from each year.

5 minutes with secatures once per week during the growing season will be MUCH easier to do that trying to fix it once it has gone wild.

I tend to let trimming just drop where they are and compost in situ anyway, so there is minimal direct handling of canes.

Top tip for pruning - blackberry likes to send out very fast growing vigorous canes that go a long way horizontally. In our situation these rarely set fruit in the first year, but they will in the second. I tend to cut them all back to around 3ft high, where they stand pretty much upright on their own. The new side growth from those cut canes is the fruit bearing portion, and this trimming keeps the fruit location compact, dense with fruit, and easy to harvest. If you let the long canes criss-cross harvesting becomes much harder.

Hi Jonah!  Great first post!  

At our farm store, Shiptons Big R, I buy three different leather gloves:  Buffalo hide, elk hide and cow hide.  I use the buffalo for cutting back spiky stuff, elk for everyday work-they live in the pickup, and cow hide for the wood splitter work.  The brand is Kinco.  However, I did just find these gloves there: (photo attached so I hope you see it)
Description
Golden Stag
SKU2771127
EID551-MED
Brand Golden Stag
Welcome to our collection of Golden Stag long cuff rose gloves with a synthetic leather palm, perfect for all rose gardening enthusiasts. These gloves are designed to provide you with the ultimate hand protection while adding a touch of style to your gardening attire. Say goodbye to scratches and thorns with these functional and fashionable rose gloves.

Oh my goodness! I am overwhelmed with information!! Thank you all for responding and giving me a lot of directions to explore. I’m going to be spending a lot of time looking into all this.

I imagine myself wander local hardware and farm supply glove displays with my phone in one hand, on the hunt for these many suggestions! I might even just get my partner, who happens to do chainmail as a hobby, to custom make me some gauntlets!

Once I get these suckers beat back and trained I hope to post some pictures!