a few nature pictures for you

I've been meaning to show some pictures of our beautiful wildlife here at our home and finally got around to downloading the photos off the camera from weeks ago.

Our first stop is a lovely oblong specimen. Anyone ever read this book? We actually have it and it didn't CLICK (ha ha ohhh ha...ehem) until after I let this beastly looking (of a fine specimen) go that it was one in the same. It scared the living daylights out of me when it did click that soon after I let it go back to its habitat. If I was thinking straight, I would have put it on its back to see if it really did click over to escape. But no....its image was starting to fuse into my brain and I knew I needed to let it go before it seeped into my subconscious and I started having dreams of big black looking eyes clicking every time they closed, chasing me down a dark tunnel with no light at the end...






So, onto our next fine specimens. Now these lovely, cute, cuddly little beasts are all but that. Oh...they may look cute and cuddly and I would've totally gotten closer, but my insides SCREAMED at me to stay away. Far, far away. These lovely little stripped fur balls live under our back deck (as far as we know). I thought there were only four, but alas! There are six! Though I did hear a skirmish the other night between something large and something small, and I think there may be less than six. And I do need to thank our dog sized groundhog, as I believe he/she is keeping them away as we haven't seem these fine looking pieces of black and white fir for over 2 days. Sure beats the weird looks I got from the store clerk while I put up 6 1/2 gallons of ammonia to pour around the deck (which didn't faze these cute pups one bit and it rained that night, so I'm not doing it again). So Mr./Mrs. Groundhog, thank you!




Now...I know these are not living creatures, but they were thriving and growing. Until we picked them. Still looking at this picture, my mouth waters and I have to keep typing so I won't go diving into the freezer to eat these succulent morsels! This was our first time strawberry picking. (I must say that Sam is the strawberry picking king!) 11 pounds of strawberries made us nine 1/2 pints of strawberry jam and 4 quarts of whole strawberries left over. We have yet to indulge in these juicy bites of yumminess.


So now I must say cheerio as the children are screaming outside and I need to make sure both come in unscathed.