Life in the Country

Top 10 pieces of evidence of life in the country...

1) The five deer that ambled into our backyard a couple weeks ago. The entire family sat on the floor of the master bedroom and admired them discreetly from the windows for several minutes.

2) The two mallard ducks that made our pond their home for a few days during the incessant rain.

3) The Blue Heron that decided to roost in front of our pond one afternoon, also during the incessant rain (I was beginning to feel like Snow White that particular day).

4) The armadillos that are digging up the lawn (All. Five. Acres. Of. It.) with odd shaped "pot holes".

5) The multitude of froggy noises that are erupting everywhere in our woods and can be heard through the open windows of our home at night.

6) The fact that we listen to frogs chirping at night instead of noisy neighbors or traffic.

7) The spiders that are beginning to show up around the house again.

8) The ticks that we are having to vigilantly try to control, but have nonetheless made appearances on our kids and dog a few times already this season.

9) The owl I hear hooting when I step outside with the dog for the last time each evening.

10) The gargantuan bugs that are beginning to appear again out of seemingly nowhere.

11) The tadpoles that Grandma M helped the kids catch out of the pond, which have become the kids' annual "science project" and which are now sitting in a mason jar on the kitchen island, gradually turning into little tree frogs who will grow up to chirp just as loudly as their parents by the time we release them to return to the pond.

12) The cow that I saw wandering about our yard, munching on our grass one morning when I awakened and opened the blinds in the master bedroom. Please note that we do not own any of our own cows, and neither do any of our closest neighbors. We watched him munch for about a half hour before he wandered off in the woods. We've not seen him since.