Our shell of a house is on 21 acres surrounded by woods and looking down at a pond.

It's a vernacular Cracker House with a tin roof with the long side facing true south.

We are down four miles of dirt roads and there is no traffic to speak of here except for my neighbor across the pond, whose house I can't see from our porch.

All around us and are Deer, squirrels, all kinds of birds, foxes, racoons, hawks, owls, armadillos, possum, turtles, snakes, lizards, ducks, Anhingas, Great Herons, turkeys, toad, frogs, alligators.... and others I can't think of.

They run wild around here and actually run our lives. We spend a small fortune on deer, bird and squirrel food. The other little critters go for it too.

The deer come right up to us. The Carninals make a sharp tinny sound if they want more food. Thank God the male has stopped attacking our car's windsheild.

We have a well.... and lots of very good, tasty water.

I'll dream about it though.

Nature gives us a little help. Last year we had a couple elderberry bushes grow that were probably seeds dropped by a bird. This year it looks like we have a crop. And several bird species do eat them.

You can just see the gold finches eating on the same flower the butterflies eat below.



Every once in a while somebody nibbles on my bleeding hearts.

blueberries, pears, and Myer Lemon tree leaves.

I'm sure I've left things out.

Oh .... right. For some reason the Aloe spines don't seem to bother them. They eat them right down to the nub. Thank God I have over a thousand Aloes--- most of them behind a fence.

But we still love the deer... and a couple of them walk right up to us and don't run away when we're filling the feeders.

Yesterday there were eleven of them circling the fence around our tree that has the crunchy variety of persimmons. Amonst them were four fawns getting lessons on how to jump a fence.

A few days ago one of the doe mammas was seen chasing a fox. He looked as if he was running for his life.

Animals. I love them more than I love most people.

We're over a thousand feet from our entrance to a dirt road that ends at our pond, so we hardly ever have any vehicular traffic.

freezes, but other then that we don't get deer.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027086688

I love wildlife.

Thank you so much for all these wonderful posts.

I live right in the middle of Boston, but our complex of buildings is landscaped and park-like and we have tons of squirrels running around. There are even a few albino squirrels and a few bunny rabbits too! I love to sit on the benches and watch them. They really are amusing little creatures!

Great pics!