The Wild Life

I gave you the tour of horrors so it's only fair that I should touch on the things I love about this house, too.

The main thing I love is that we live in the woods in the country so I get to see a ton of animals. I'm not choosy about my animals, domestic, livestock, or wild...if it's cute I'm interested.

A few nights ago it poured buckets and I learned what an areal flood is. That night we took our usual walk. Sugarbear is a taskmaster and doesn't care what the weather is like. We saw a hundred toads of all sizes. They were ev-ery-where. Little ones, chunky ones, smooshed ones....it was toad city. We can count on about one toad, weird centipede or giant beetle on every walk.

Yesterday was nice, on accounta the polar vortex, so Sugar and I took a rare midday walk down to our neighbor's house where I am chicken sitting. It seems a little gauche to be roasting a chicken at home in the crock pot while cavorting with live ones....I'll chalk that up to poor planning. I left the Bear on the outside of the fence just in case, while I let the chickens out of the coop to range. The chickens were thrilled and Sugar was mesmerized. It was her first time seeing a real, live chicken and her face was priceless.

Onward we went and I got another treat! An up close visit from the Donkey that is as old as me and her pet goats! Sugar was beside herself at this point and I was just as excited. We stood in the breeze and checked out the goats and the donkey while they checked out us. It was fabulous.

Then off around the horses who were grazing in the sunshine and a quick chat with Zoe the Neighborhood Ambassadog. Ambassetdor?

Down the hill with the peacock rooster, around the bend and through the woods. More chickens are up the hill and a pond that I need to check for fish is on the side. Up the hill past the deer farm and then you're home where two fluffballs sit sentinel on the wicker furniture.

In our yard we have birds galore! Some would say we have more birds than TOADS if you can even imagine.

And if you're lucky, which we are a few times a week, you can see deer slinking around the yard on their stilt legs. This morning as I was edging around the pile of wood floor I saw movement at out of the corner of my eye and it was four sleek does tip toeing past.

We see a fair amount of bunnies, not as many as I would like. Bats swoop overhead in the evenings.

Home sweet home.