Wild Thing: The June 2009 Edition

In the continuing tales of the animal life near my house, I bring you the newest addition to the neighborhood, a baby deer (click on the photos to enlarge them):

Just a cool picture of the creek after a shower last week:

More baby deer:

Learning to navigate the difficult terrain:

We also had another visitor this week. I present to you McKenna's new nemesis, Greg the Groundhog:

He's a little hard to see, but he's there, sticking his head up above the bank of the creek. He teased McKenna for an entire day--she sat on the porch waiting for him, he would pop his head up, she would bark like crazy, he would quickly return to his hole, she would wait again, and on and on it went.

Now, if Kenna could only catch that groundhog, I'll bet one of my new cookbooks from Aunt and Uncle of Ken would have a good recipe for groundhog pie...

Zoobilee Zoo: Another Animal Story

It's official--my house has turned into the Salmon Creek Zoo. The only allowed animal is McKenna, the dog, but many other creatures have taken up residence at our house recently. The inhabitants of the Salmon Creek Zoo include:

Squirrels:

Chipmunks:

Rabbits:

Groundhogs:

Mice:

Snakes:

And the newest addition to the zoo--bats!

I found a live bat on the stairs going up to my bedroom tonight. Thankfully, it was still wrapped up in its wings and wasn't fully awake yet. After screaming, of course, I ran to the kitchen to grab a plastic storage container and lid. I covered the bat with the container and slid it onto the lid. Then I moved hastily to the back door and onto the porch where I threw both the container and the bat out into the blackness of night, ran back into the house, and locked the door. Sorry, no photos of this--I was too busy removing the bat to take pictures.

I don't know how it got in and I don't care to know, but I do occasionally see bats hanging out on the back of the house like this:

Gentle readers, I tell you this: I would much rather remove a bat from my house than a snake. And if any of you animals are reading this, I implore you to stay out of my house. No good can come of you crossing the threshold into my home. If only there were a "zapper" that worked on multiple creatures...