Fire Chief Greets the Day

For months now, we've been monitoring Fire Chief, the cactus with the spectacularly orange flowers, to see when he -- for some reason, we decided the plant was male -- was going to bloom. Last week I worried that it might never happen, since the buds had looked ready for a long time with no results. So, when we walked outside this morning, it was wonderful to see that his hard work had finally paid off:

It doesn't get much better than that in the realm of flora. We're very proud of him.