I told you we are not pet people....

Well like in a previous post I mentioned we are just not good pet people so we don't have any actual pets of our own... but now that we have moved & don't have neighbors bordering us on all sides we are really living the Young Family Adventure - we have antelope on the hill, we seem to have rabbits & baby bunnies popping up all over the place (we have 2 that love our front lawn & I found baby bunnies under the tree that the 2 bucks rest under), the 2 bucks, many deer in the early spring, our Magpie friend who I am afraid has retired under the porch for good (& I am sure we will learn of his fate in the next couple days (ugh!)), the boys saw a mouse in the window well outside the basement window (which they were terrified of) about a week ago.... (Can you tell I have lived in town/the city too long!) Well today topped it off Tyler found our newest creature & he was freaked out!!! (I have scared them all enough that he was about to have a seizure he was shaking so bad.)

See if you can see it in the first picture...

Luckily this little guy was probably just a Garter snake... (I hope!) But he was about 2 feet long & had a bit of an attitude as he went under one of my small little plants & poked his head out to watch us while we waited 20 minutes in the driveway for dad to get home from work so he could take care of it!!

Well of course I had to psych the kids out as they just run about without shoes & don't watch where they are going (As that has been our routine up till now, I too had been outside gardening in the dark (a little light on) until 12:30am most nights too!) & our neighbors came to me a couple weeks ago as they saw me out working in my flower beds to let me know that they had killed 2 rattlesnakes 2 weeks in a row!! Of course since we were new to the neighborhood with small children - they thought I would like to know! Aaah!!! So we just never know what we will find. (So I felt bad for poor Tyler as he was about to convulse he was shaken up so bad, but he is the one I worry about the most as he is just a free roaming child.)

We have been warned about pigmy rattlers, rattlesnakes in general, scorpions, black widow spiders, & a friend of mine had a bull snake in her yard last summer. So if you want to save some money & skip the zoo... watch out before too long we might have a wildlife reserve in our side yard!! Smiles!!