While hiking my local trails at Montcalm Community College, I stumbled across a cactus. My first thought was that someone was playing a trick on all of us trail users and planted a cactus to get us talking. I quickly figured out that my thinking couldn’t be farther from the truth, Michigan does have a cactus that can withstand the harsh Michigan winters. Meet the prickly pear cactus; the only native cactus to Michigan. After posting a few pictures on Facebook, I learned that quite a few people had the prickly pear growing on their property as well. When I discovered it several weeks ago it had flower buds but it wasn’t quite ready to bloom. I’ve been trying to make it over there a couple of times a week to check its status when I hit the jackpot on Saturday.
I am now the owner of two prickly pear cacti; I have a dear friend that dug some up from his yard and dropped them off to me over the weekend. I just need to figure out where to put them.
