Perception

I take the kids out walking around the neighborhood whenever the weather cooperates. They like to walk down the alleys and see which backyards have dogs, and we talk about all kinds of things regarding plants and animals and just whatever they see.

The area I live in is a pretty typical suburban kind of place- the backyards all look fairly similar. Fenced, grass, yard toys and/or dog, maybe a garden. The usual. And then there's this one house that we always have to stop and look at. One panel of the fence is made of trellis material- that latticework stuff so you can see into the whole yard. The place looks like a jungle. We can hear water running, although we can't find the place it's coming from. It looks like they haven't mowed in a hundred years. Trees are all over the place and one has fallen over. There are random birdbaths and birdhouses in various spots. It's fun to look at but I never could figure out why they didn't just MOW, for the love of pete! It's pretty unkempt and wild looking.

And then it all became clear with the new sign on the fence one day when we walked by:

"Backyard Wildlife Habitat: This property provides the four basic habitat elements needed for wildlife to thrive: food, water, cover, and places to raise young. It has been certified by the National Wildlife Federation as an official Backyard Wildlife Habitat site."

I had no idea such a thing existed, but I love this!! Now we can look at it with new eyes and talk about the different areas and what their purposes might be. We were even able to talk to the owner the other day while he was outside raking leaves and he explained some of the rationale behind the placement. Very cool. What we thought was a birdhouse is actually a BAT house.

Funny how you can go from thinking something is bad and needs to be cleaned, to thinking it's amazing and exactly right, just by understanding the situation. Seems like a good lesson to learn on many levels.

Roly Poly Bugs

Yesterday I spun them around on our little octopus merry go round until I couldn't do it anymore. With four or five kids sitting on it, that doesn't really take long. They're used to me giving up quickly, and one of them will generally refer to my "tired little noodle arms". They know me well. Anyway, they asked if I would move it out a few feet so they had room to run around it and take turns spinning each other instead. Bonus.

I don't move it very often because it kills the grass underneath and it's kind of muddy and gross. I scooted it over a bit and they got to see a huge den? (nest? what do you call it?) of roly poly bugs.

And ooh, now I am totally going to print that out as a coloring sheet and teach them all about it.

But anyway. There were about fifty of them all milling around and the girls were immediately fascinated. Duchess, Ariel, and Tinkerbell (who was back visiting for the day) were fighting over who could catch more of them, gathering them by the handful, letting them crawl up their arms...

And Sebastian was standing on top of the merry go round screaming. "BUGS! YUCK!"

I love that we're all about breaking down the gender stereotypes here. :)

Ariel got to sixteen, I think, before her handful got so big she was going to squish them if she tried to put more in.


Sebastian, in the blue plaid, never would get down or touch them, but he did get brave enough to lean over and look a bit more closely.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Well, I'm not sure if I feel better or worse about it, but I do believe I have discovered the identity of that small critter we saw in the backyard a few weeks ago. It did die, by the way. I kept an eye on it during the day and the last time I went out I had to get my shovel and dispose of it properly. And wash my hands twelve more times.

My sister had jokingly sent me an email saying that it perhaps was this creature:
Which it is not. But that jerboa thing? Weird. Never heard of one of those before.

So today during naptime I was working hard blog-surfing and catching up on the Pioneer Woman and I found pictures that look identical to my critter. It's not a mouse. Oh My Word. It was a

POSSUM.

I think I'm really grossed out.

And yet strangely intrigued.

I called all the kids over to verify and they said YES!! That's our mouse!!

Then I showed them what it would grow up to look like and they were a bit alarmed. Duchess said, "Um, but it died, right? That thing is not in the yard, right?"

Ack.