Wild Kingdom

It's been almost 4 years since Ben and I randomly found this little neighborhood and fell in love so deeply we quickly sold our house and moved here. 4 years, and I still love driving down Colston Road as much as I did in the very beginning. Part of what I love so much, apart from the neighbors and the feeling of home, is how very far away we feel from one of the largest, loudest, most polluted and heavily congested cities in the country.

Take for instance the wildlife we have! In the past 2 weeks alone we've encountered deer strolling down our street in early morning, as well as the following two friends.

I was minding my own business, doing some planting in our new beds by the back deck when I felt something breeze right past my head. I thought it was the biggest monarch butterfly I'd ever seen! When I turned and looked at our arbor at 2 o'clock in the afternoon I was shocked to see a bat! Now, this is especially a thrill for me to see a bat up close, between seeing the cool bats in Austin and that we have so many mosquitos, I've seriously considered purchasing a bat house for our back yard.

I'm sure something was wrong with him, though, that he was out midday like that. I managed to get a few pictures of him and then went about my business. A little while later, I hate to have to tell you he went to fly off, ran head first into our deck and dropped dead before my eyes! I was surprisingly heartbroken by his sudden demise, but since our relationship I've certainly decided to invite more of his family to live in our yard when we're finished our outside rennovations.

Then a few days later, I was feeding Matty dinner when this gorgeous hawk swooped down and perched in our back yard. We actually saw him the very next day as well. I was thrilled to get some good close up pics of him before he flew off. Come to think of it, I never did see the bat corpse after this...