As I said before, we get lots of animals in our backyard. I already documented in detail how Toby feels about the chipmunks. We also get your normal rabbits and birds going through. It’s fun to watch out the back and see what we can find. Here are a few recent favorites:

CATS

Our neighbors have cats who like to wander into our yard. Really, they like to sit under the deck in our neighbor’s yard, but on their way they tend to catch Toby’s attention and he appropriately barks and makes a fuss. They live across the street from us, and the cats also like to sit out on the bedroom window ledge. You can imagine what this also does to Toby.

SLUGS

Today while doing yard work Adrian found this cool guy in the grass. He tried to eat his hand, but I missed the picture of that. I did, appetizingly, get a nice picture of the goo it excreted. MMM.

(We saw tons of these around last summer, but they seemed to have hibernated for the winter. It was the first time one of us picked them up, though, I think.)

…DEER!!!

This morning Toby was going insane, to the point that I knew it was probably more than just a chipmunk. I figured it was a cat or something. But then I saw that he was looking to the back of the yard, and saw the deer!  Two of them! And they finally stayed around long enough this time for me to get a picture. WOO! I mean, how cool is that?! That’s our yard. That deer is standing over the carrot seeds I planted last week. That’s awesome.

The other cool detail is that Toby had run downstairs to the back door and in this picture the deer turned to look at him barking. Somehow I don’t think the deer was too intimidated, though.

After staying for a while, during which time I took a ton of pictures, our animals made a lot of noise, and Adrian tried to show Morgan, the deer wandered back into the woods. Come back soon, friends!

…another one of our little chipmunk friends. Look at its pretty stripes!

Hey, we’ve all got hard-to-reach areas to scratch.

The chipmunks, incidentally, have I think taken to taunting Toby. They come and sit outside the door and just [...]]]> Through the tree and bushes, on our neighbor’s deck…

…another one of our little chipmunk friends. Look at its pretty stripes!

Hey, we’ve all got hard-to-reach areas to scratch.

The chipmunks, incidentally, have I think taken to taunting Toby. They come and sit outside the door and just stare at him while he barks and goes nuts. It’s funny except for when all his noise sets off Twinkie and then Morgan starts to wake up.

Our yard backs up to a wetland area, and this gives us lots of little critters (and some large) that pass through for visits. Just about every day for the past couple weeks, we’ve seen chipmunks. Here’s what happened [...]]]> I had big plans of “getting things done” today, but I have to share this:

Our yard backs up to a wetland area, and this gives us lots of little critters (and some large) that pass through for visits. Just about every day for the past couple weeks, we’ve seen chipmunks. Here’s what happened today…

Why, hello little friend! You are welcome to relax on our back stoop.

Toby, naturally, is rather “intrigued” by these little guys. In fact, it was all the noise he was making that brought the human with the camera downstairs in the first place.

You’d better watch out, though, Toby, because when you make all that noise…

…they usually run away. Toby looks and looks, hoping he’ll get another glimpse. He has smudged up the whole door at his height by pressing his nose against the glass.

Maybe from the window? Hmm, no luck here, better run back to the door.

He whines…

…and scratches and barks…

…and sniffs and paws and generally acts completely insane, all in trying to see again what’s out there, or perhaps to get out and find it himself.

Ah ha! All that commotion is rewarded.

He tries even harder to get out, but the door refuses to give way. Chipmunk looks warily on.

Chipmunk, perhaps realizing that the crazy dog behind the glass can’t get to him, inches closer…

…and stands to say hello. This of course sends Toby into a further frenzy. He tries to attack say hello back…

…and scares Chipmunk away again.

Chipmunk, however, is the brave sort, and slowly ventures out again from the safety of his hiding place under the barbeque.

He stands perfectly still, allowing for his portrait to be taken by the perhaps equally crazy human behind the glass with the dog.

He decides to show his other side to the camera while the lady admires his lovely colors…

…then rushes off again to his little safe spot. The dog, again, runs around and barks like a lunatic.

And the lady learns she can finally decently capture the chipmunks on her camera as long as she has enough patience and takes about 60 pictures in a three minute period.

The end.