Another Cute Photo

I know it seems as if I'm taking more photos than doing any art these days but I am painting - I'm just not painting anything I can show right now.

But, back to the photo. That's a cute little frog stuck to our glass kitchen storm door in case you can't tell. He was there when I came back from the barn after tending to Bonnie. It was still fairly dark out and I had a hard time getting a good photo. I tried to take a picture from inside but the kind of glass we have in the door evidently isn't good for shooting photos through as all I got was a yellowish blob!

I don't know what it is with the wildlife lately, but our porch has been attractive to it. Yesterday morning as I was going out to the barn to feed Bonnie, there was a little rabbit not far from the kitchen door! Again, it was still pretty dark outside and I didn't see it until I was right up on it! It startled me good, let me tell you! Of course, I'm sure it was startled more than I was! Since I'd come from around the corner (we have a wrap-around porch and I'd gone out another door) I guess it didn't hear or see me coming.

He hopped down the steps ahead of me and couldn't get away fast enough! The little frog didn't hang around very long either. I'd planned to try for more pictures after the sun came up but he was gone by the time that happened.

Oh, well, at least I got this one! I don't know what to expect for tomorrow morning but I'll look carefully before going out - there's been a whiff of skunk in the air the past couple of mornings!

Sisters Reunion

my sisters and me

I'm so sorry for not being around much this month. My husband had the flu then gave it to me and for about 3 weeks, we only got out of bed enough to take care of the animals.

Then my sisters arrived from the mid-west this past Friday and left yesterday so we were very busy catching up and giggling and generally acting like we were kids again (minus the arguing! lol) Our brother and his family came from near Winston-Salem on Saturday and we had a big cook-out and even more giggling and cutting up. I'm sure our adult children who were there thought we were nuts but that's ok - how many people in their 50's and 60's get to act like kids again?

My sister, Sue, is a professional photographer and got to see a lot of our wildlife - maybe too much actually as a skunk came up into the yard one evening! We got photos of it but it was moving around a lot and we just weren't going to get all that close to it so the pictures came out a little blurry!

I'll probably show some of the photos I took in future posts but I do think that pretty much all of the wildlife we have here showed up at one point or another during their visit. It became our ritual to sit out on the back porch in the early mornings and evenings to see what wandered by!

Anyway, I hope to do better keeping up this blog now that life has settled down again!

Early Morning Visitor in the Back Orchard

"Possum"
Copyright
Jan Gibson

We're early risers around here and often see deer who have bedded down in the orchards. We've also had skunks who take great exception to our two dogs being allowed into the fenced orchard before dawn. Since getting a couple of not-so-gentle reminders from the skunks, we wait until daylight to allow the dogs to run in there!

So, when I let the dogs out this morning and they started barking along the orchard fence (which borders the back yard), I had a sick feeling that a skunk had wandered closer to the house than they normally do. I was relieved to find a possum scurrying as fast as it could go toward the back of the orchard. I guess it felt it might get caught out in the open of the hay field on the other side of the fence so it quickly climbed into the grape arbor and hid itself among the unpruned vines.

Possums, (or o'possums), are weird creatures to look at but I kind of like them. We hardly ever see one as, like the skunks, they're nocturnal. Some possums are very pretty, like the one this morning. Some are pretty scraggly looking and not so appealing. This one had soft-looking, almost pearl colored fur but I know it's actually rather coarse to the touch and they're usually a darker gray color.

Since I was photographing so early in the morning, I didn't get any great pictures of the possum (this photo has been enhanced) and this was about the only clear shot of it that I got because of all the grape vines it was hiding behind. I've been wanting to sort of catalog our wildlife and do some drawings or paintings of actual animals that I've seen around here. We have an abundance of sightings but I think I'm going to have to get a better camera in order to get good, clear shots of them. Sketching from life is a near impossibility as most won't hold still long enough or, like this possum, are only seen at dusk or dawn!