Flora and Fauna

Finally, the time that I had been waiting for arrived - the blooming of the cacti blossoms.

While the athletic complex does not offer many examples of floral diversity, there was still some color to be seen on the other side of the perimeter fence (which I climbed over, thus trespassing on state land).

Here you see the purple cactus blossoms amidst a field of yellow flowers, which I had not yet identified.

These beautiful blossoms belong to (I think) a barrel cactus. While the prickly pear cacti sported beautiful yellow blossoms elsewhere in the city, they were still in the budding stage at the athletic complex.

Here's a close-up of the barrel cactus blossoms.

Beautiful flowers weren't the only exciting things I found at the athletic complex. Last week I came across this beaut, a 4 to 5 foot long bull snake.

Despite its mean appearance, Silas the snake was actually quite mellow. He just coiled up and hissed his little snaky head off when Kane got a little bit too close. Otherwise he was a real sweetheart who was very accommodating when I went to take his picture.