So I wanted to talk about the wildlife in my backyard.  I know there’s wildlife all around us, but I just really love being able to just come out into our backyard and see all different sorts of animals enjoying the whole space out there.   

Our little pond, built by my husband, Frank, is a big attraction for birds and frogs and whoever else might need a drink or a bath or just a cool place to hang out. We have two pretty large koi and five shubunkins in it.  It also has a beautiful waterfall and this is where the birds and frogs like to sit, relax. get drinks, and take baths.  Frank has the rocks arranged in just a certain way to make it convenient for the birds to be able to bathe.  There’s a small puddle at the top and they love to splash around in it.  And that is what they do every single morning and night before bed. This is where they gather.   They even wait in line for their turn.  It’s really amazing to watch and it feels great to have something like this that gets put to such good use!  

We even have a peach tree, and although the peaches were meant for us to eat, of course it turns out that the squirrels always get to them first.  By the time they would have been ripe and ready for us to eat, they were gone!  We also have a vegetable garden with cherry tomatoes in it right across from our pond. The cherry tomatoes are a favorite of the little chipmunks around here and we have one who lives right on our patio under our wood pile.  So we’re constantly finding half eaten cherry tomatoes right by the wood pile, which is of course, also right next to the garden. That little chipmunk has it made!  We’ve also seen many rabbit mommies with their baby bunnies over the years, traveling around our yard.  They are the cutest.

Last year, we had a heron standing right in the middle of the yard just looking around.  I’m sure the word got around and he heard there was a pond with fish here.  And that’s not all. There’s always a lot of deer around our neighborhood, sometimes they’ve even been seen running across the street in the daytime.  A couple of years ago about six deer jumped over the fence into our backyard , ran across our yard towards the front, and then hopped the fence again into our front yard right in the middle of the day.  So awesome to see!