Last July, I commented on the prickly pear cactus in my garden that bloomed on the same day, July 1^st, two years in a row. I wondered if the plant could tell accurate time and awaited this year’s bloom. Would it be the same day again?

Since the bloom lasts only a day or so, I checked daily to discover that a pair of blossoms opened on June 30, a day before the last two years. One day off out of 365—about a quarter per cent error. Is that enough to accuse the plant of jumping the gun, or is it just a rounding error?

Not to humanize the cactus, it does show amazing perseverance—looking like a dead piece of shoe leather in early April, beat upon by five nor’easters in three weeks and nibbled around the edges by marauding mice—only to regain its green color in May and send out fat buds in June.

That bloomed like this:

On top of that, it had to fend off two roughhousing dogs who thought nothing of wrestling nearby, deterred only by the prick of needles the cactus grew to defend itself.

Here they are: Luci-fur and Dingo measuring the size of their teeth.

I think I’ll cut the cactus some slack, welcome it happily to my garden, and forgive it for being a bit eager. Come to think of it, were it a person it would be more likely to be late than early.

Nice to see you, opuntia!