Last summer when I was wheeling out barrels of sand from the sandbox in preparation for laying down the deck that now surrounds the Tiki bar, it was a hot day and I got tired of wheeling sand to the waste area behind the houses at the end of our street and cheated by throwing three or four barrels of sand into my front area normally covered by rocks. I created a nice little hill of sand and then covered that with rocks, and in memory of why I was having to do all this manual labor – the cat that was fouling my sandbox – named it “Cat Hill”. It ended up looking OK, especially after I added some metal work art and a couple of bunnies to make it something of whimsy.

So imagine my surprise the other day when I happened to see some actual growth coming out of the hill in the form of some kind of cactus I don’t know the name of. We have cactus like that on the opposite side of the property in back of the house, so all I can think of is that some seeds must have found the sandbox area and were carried into what became Cat Hill. I think it’s all pretty amazing, and just another example of how the miracle of God’s creation never ceases to surprise and amaze.

This cactus is a spreading kind, so it’ll be fun to watch it grow and see if it prospers in its new environ. I figure it made it this far, so I’m not betting against the little guy. But you can bet I’m not going to give it a pat on the back – this kind of cactus is covered with little filament spines and you’ll get hundreds of little spines in your skin if you were to touch it.