Al and Faith (and Tai & Bode): Critters around the house

I love this time of year when it's getting warm, the grass is green and the leaves are on the trees. This is also the time that the critters around the house come out in full force.

One day last week we looked out the living room door to see a nice buck deer in velvet. He was just moseying along eating everything in site. Notice the wire that you can see in front of his face? That's to TRY to keep them out of our yard and out of my gardens. (doesn't work very well, but we try). The chickens are just ignoring him, eating everything in site that they can. (Today we put up little fences around all the flowers beds to keep THEM out as well)

The next morning, we looked out to see a tom turkey and two hens. We haven't seen any little turkeys this year yet, but last year we had two bunches of them around most of the spring/early summer.

The birds are still coming to the feeders in droves. We see orioles, and grosbeaks along with the normal ones, but this year we also have an Indigo Bunting that has decided we make a great lunch. We usually see them in the summer around, but they don't go to the feeder very often.

The geese have hatched their eggs and the fuzzy goslings are running around. Usually by this time they are on the big lake, but there were so many people in the park this weekend, that they moved back up by the house.

Yesterday afternoon we had a tree-frog on the deck. He just sat on the railing for an hour or so. He was so small, Al put a penny in the picture so you can see his size. Every now and then you will see them crawling up the windows. They are kind of creepy, but neat to see up close, too.

Spring is also the time that the bats return. I really don't mind them because I'm sure they are one of the reasons that we don't have many mosquitoes in the park, but they have taken up residence in our siding on the house. They go into the siding during the day up at the top of the wall. Every night around dusk you can hear them start to squeak and scratch around trying to get out to go eat more bugs. They fly down a little bit as they come out, and if you happen to be sitting on one particular chair on the porch, they will swoop just over the top of your head.

I caught a couple pictures of them coming out last night. They are a bit blurry because it was getting dark but they are still pretty cool. There were 5 that left this little tiny space. I did have to stand there for 10 minutes or so and take tons of messed up photos to get these.

I know, I'm a dork. But how many of you have photos like these? Or, truthfully, how many of you really want a photo like these? Probably not many. :)