I saw the grass spider in my houseplant and honestly it was just too cute to have a spider in the spider plant. He was catching and eating the irritating gnats left over from a failed indoor herb planting, and he was not in the way.

However, when his web started extending past the plants and over taking the window, and he was looking a little gaunt because all the gnats were gone, I gathered him between two cups and released him outside.

I think this cute chubby tree frog is guarding the rain gauge. Ot maybe making commentary on the lack of water. Or maybe mistook the stand for a tree. Anyway, he makes an adorable guardian.

All sorts of little critters around the place! A little rough earth snake loves to hang out under the chicken’s foot bath. I’ve moved him twice. He looks very much like a little worm, but if the chickens spot him he will look like lunch.

These little guys may be leaf footed bug nymphs, and were hanging out on the oregano.

This toad likes to hang out under the rosemary. There are so many toads and frogs!

I found a very interesting caterpillar in the yard, definitely looks like something to avoid touching. I tried identifying it with an app, but there were no caterpillar pictures to compare to (turns out the second hit was a Question Mark butterfly, so my trust is restored). So I turned to image searches for “spikey caterpillar Texas” which lead me to butterfliesandmoths.org. Yup, bookmarked it, after finding a very similar looking caterpillar and cross referencing another image search on “question mark caterpillar”. I frequently do a kind of reverse search once I think I’ve found my answer. It is very interesting what I sometimes find. Mostly it confirms, but sometimes it debunks. This confirmed and gave more caterpillar pictures that matched my little guy.