Life on the Reserve

We are a suburban family.  There are over 100,000 people in our city.  Our backyard is landlocked by other backyards.  But you would never know it.  We've been in this house almost a year.  I have recently come to the conclusion that we were misinformed when we bought this house.  Little did I know our house was located in the middle of a wildlife reserve.

We had a chipmunk eating our garden so we had to "relocate" that little critter a couple weeks ago.

Then, we had a bunny find his way into our yard. And then into the girls' playhouse.  And then into a box. (And then he jumped out of the box, over Bailey's head, landed on the patio table, slid off onto a chair, landed on the dog, jumped onto the ground and then ran across the yard where it promptly jumped our six foot fence...but that's a whole other post in and of itself).

You know how I feel about mice.  And fuzzy, black, smiling, spiders that look like mice from a distance.

You may remember how I feel about lizards too.  Not a fan.  Especially when they camp out on my front porch like this behemoth.

He doesn't look scary? Well obviously you can't see him. That's ok...my camera has zoom.

Um, ew! 

And, as if all those little critters weren't bad enough, we had another visitor this past weekend.  I was washing dishes and saw him on the patio.  That's when the freakout started.  I started yelling for Brian and making sure the dogs and the girls were in the house.  Pardon me for not taking pictures of it IN the backyard, but here is a picture of it after Brian caught it.

That's right.  A king snake.  Apparently they are considered "harmless." (Can a snake really be considered harmless when you're a mother and it's close to your babies?!). Brian caught it in an old trash can and then took it down to the creek to release it.  

Needless to say I'm a little paranoid in our backyard now.  I've had my fill of wildlife for a while.  

I miss the bunny.