This is Norman, our local groundhog (aka R.O.U.S.).
Norman thinks that our front yard is his own little private kingdom.
I'm honestly okay with that, as long as he sticks with the clover field (aka lawn) in the front and stays away from the garden. Hopefully, Norman never realizes there is a veggie garden in the back yard...
The local deer do not get names.
I'm hoping they are just passing through.
The bunnies do not get names either.
They do not deserve it.
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| Stop eating my poor little Aster!! |
Mr. and Mrs. Wren have taken up residence at the Red House Garden. They are an adventurous sort. Instead of going with the oh-so-nice, hand built luxury birdhouses we put out for them, they decided to raise their young in the top of our propane tank.
They have successfully raised and fledged three baby Wrens. I found this out when I was out watering the garden, and Mr. and Mrs. Wren started furiously chattering at me. I looked down and realized I was watering their three little babies. (Oops, sorry!)
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| one of the baby wrens in the top of our propane tank |
I just hope they don't run into George. George is our 6-foot-long Black Racer Snake. I don't have a picture of him - thankfully he does, indeed, race away from us. The moment we met George (sunning himself on our garage door step), we realized why we have never seen a single solitary frog or lizard in our yard.
The same day we met George, we met Harry the Spider. Harry was in our garage at the time. If you listen to Mr. Red House's version, Harry looks something like this, just hairier:
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| photo source |
I assure you, he was a tad smaller.
Living in our yard, we also have Chester the chipmunk. He usually hangs out in a drainpipe under our rain barrel.
I think Chester likes that spot because it is close to the garage. And if the garage is open for any length of time, you can pretty much bet on finding a scene like this:
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| a chipmunk very guiltily sitting on a bag of birdseed |
So there you go, that's the round-up of local characters here at the Red House Garden, other than a motley assortment of birds that hang out near the bird feeder.
Let's not talk about the squirrel.
