I’ve seen videos of people giving a toad a back scratch, and the toad leans into the attention as if in enjoyment, but I didn’t think this was a regular toad behavior. Imagine my delight when one of the house toads let me give him (her?) a scratch! Oh wait, you don’t have to imagine, here is the video. Warning, my voice goes hypersonic and I speak baby talk to the toad (incidentally, I never use this speech mode with children, it is reserved for animals).
Did you know that armadillos like to roll in the mud? We found out when going through the trail cam photos after a long dry spell. Our little creek is now a streak of mud, and the armadillo loves it! I put together some of the stills into an animated gif so you can get the gist of the joy.
We have a mother Raccoon and what looks like two babies in the back woods. Our trail cam catches some of the young ones’ antics at night. Momma looks tired. I feel for you Momma!
We have a meadow on the side of the house, in front of the chicken coop. I’ve been seeding wildflowers there since we moved in, and when the blooms are done and the seeds have formed I trim down the whole meadow with a string trimmer. It usually takes over two hours and two tanks of gas before I’ve had enough! This year we invested in a trimmer mower, which has thick replaceable plastic “string” like a trimmer, but is mounted on three wheels and pushed like a mower. The trimmer mower and I are now friends. It does a much neater job on the meadow than I did swinging a trimmer back and forth, and I ran out of gas before it did. I was also able to get more done in those two hours.
I did leave some of the Standing Cypress near the road so it will reseed, and I found an ironweed, which I mowed around because I haven’t seen one before and it had pretty purple blooms. I am hoping that it will also reseed.
We have a lovely patch of buffalo grass happily spreading near the coop. In order to keep it from dying I took a rake to the trimmings to keep them from matting up and killing the roots. A little brownsnake kept me company.
When any kind of yard work is going on, my flock usually hides in the coop. But one brave hen ventured out and discovered that all sorts of tasty things jumped into the runs to escape the mower. I saw her chasing a snake and at least a couple grasshoppers!
It has been awhile since I’ve posted trail cam photos. Mostly they have been blurry pictures of raccoons, opossums, armadillos, cats, and the occasional bird. After some adjustment of the camera position, I am now getting less blurry snaps. Mostly.
Critters and Craft 