Prickly Pear AKA Tuna Syrup

I've been wanting to harvest the prickly pear fruits, called tuna, for a year now. While traveling on Thanksgiving I found a lonely prickly pear cactus in front of a closed up restaurant in a run down town. Weilding a pair of tongs, I twisted the fruits from the paddles, being careful of the sharp pricklers. I tossed 'em in a plastic bag and took them home.
Today I juiced about half of them which gave me about 10 cups of juice! I searched the internet for how to prepare prickly pears and found the various ways to remove the spines. I tried to peel the skin carefully but it was difficult to do, so I tried soaking the fruits in water for an hour, swishing them around and rinsing them to remove the spines. This removed most, but not all. Lastly I found Chile Chews blogger site and followed the directions she used to prepare prickly fruit juice. The one difference I did was I used an old T-shirt to strain the juices through because I was scared a spine may squeeze through my cheesecloth.
I made the syrup following her recipe for the most part and the bit that spilled during canning tasted very good. I can't wait to try it over ice cream! I may even try to use it as a substitute for maple syrup in granola.
No matter how careful I was I did end up with spines. Most of them I was able to remove with tweezers but I have a few that broke off close to the skin and are very irritating. Next time I plan to use tongs, hold the fruit over a fire and burn the little spines off.
With my left over 7 cups of juice I plan to freeze some of it, and make jelly with the rest. I want to try to use the low sugar pectin, so I will report how that goes.