<—  Here is one of our praying mantis babies (at least I like to think it is).  Four years ago we purchased an egg sack and put it into a bug box.  Then, (as anticipated) we came out one day to find thousands of mantis babies which we released on our property.  Now, we still find them hanging around from time to time and see their offspring in the summer (the offspring are as tiny as ants).  Regardless of their tendency to eat beneficial bugs, they also eat pests harmful to the garden and we consider them our friends and enjoy their company.  The one shown here is medium sized compared to others we have spotted.  They often tolerate a petting on the back and don’t really scurry when approached by human hands.   

We love to watch the hummingbirds come to the feeder outside our back window.

These horses just showed up on our lawn one fall morning.  After their owner was found, they left leaving big dips (from heavy hooves) in the lawn and big piles of droppings!  We were happy to accommodate them regardless.

<— The fainted picture is the real thing.  The darker picture is a copy  to show a comparison as I was trying to match up what kind of owl this was.  However, I am still not 100% sure it was an elf owl since I later learned that the strange noises we sometimes hear in our forest could be screech owls.  Either way, it was neat to see this one visiting and spying on us through the window.

<—  Here’s that hungry bobcat.  When we told our neighbors we had a bobcat hanging around, they looked at us like we were crazy.  “We haven’t had bobcats around here in over a decade.” they said.  [Crazy city people!]   But when you see a bobcat in a tree at eye level, 10ft away, you know what you saw!  Oh well, we had our chickens safely locked up at night in new quarters so, all was well on our home front once again, regardless.  Then, hungry, I presume (since it was no longer eating our chickens) the bobcat was found in the barn attic at a neighbor’s house.  It was trapped, so we got a call from our elderly neighbor to help him make an opening to let the cat out.  The next morning, the bobcat was gone from the attic.  We haven’t seen it since, but he sure did leave an imprint since his time around here kept us on our toes for awhile and made life a little more interesting than usual.        

We are not big cat people but, Papa Green insists: cats keep the mice away so, we try to keep two cats at all times.  If they get out of the house, they are surely prey for a hungry predator.  We learned early on that this is not a safe place for cats!  It is hard to keep our cats in sometimes but this cat actually survived a bobcat attack (we heard the commotion when we were hanging out late one night by the fire pit)  so she doesn’t even attempt to lurk outdoors anymore—she now knows what is out there.  I will have to get another picture of the other cat so she can have a bit of spot light too.  I just found this one in the camera after the kids had the camera for awhile.