Critter Country!

ACK!!!

I so wish I had pictures to go with this post, I believe everyone needs to see what all lives on the property here with us. (Note that I didn't say in the house. Luckily the worst we've seen in here are tiny harmless bugs and spiders.)

So, first of all, the first week we lived here and every week following we have seen/heard the following:

• Skunks - Not a surprise given the location of our home... but one seems to have a "home" in the ivy in front of our house and likes to commute to the hills behind our home via our yard. I'm going to look up repellent today... and to be safe I may buy a case of tomato juice next time I'm at Sam's Club.
• Possums - Once again, not a surprise. So far, these seem to be "transients" and not actually living anywhere in our yard... to our knowledge. Our back yard is a HUGE mess that the landlord keeps promising to clean up. (We're about to give up...) Still, they just have to be the nastiest little creatures. Seriously. I've hated possums from a very young age. GROSS!
• Bats - I haven't actually seen one, but we can hear them at night. Luckily it sounds as though they are in the distance.
• Bugs/Spiders - This is Southern California. To take it a step further, the Inland Empire. Black Widows are a given. Having grown up out here I knew that, thankfully they aren't as bad here as they are in Big Bear... and we haven't seen any in our home. Bugs and meaningless spiders don't bother us too much. I surrounded the exterior of the house yesterday with moth balls and that seems to be helping with the night time fliers.
• Tarantulas - I'm not including this with spiders because they are just too big and deserve their own moment in this blog. My parent's live only a few miles away and I don't think I EVER saw one of these roaming wildly through the yard. The first one was a week after we moved in. Bobby was helping me get the baby in the truck on our way to church and I noticed it on the walk way. The second one was just chilling on the wall yesterday when we were trying to get the BBQ going. I'm hoping that as we get into winter we don't see anymore of these. Sure, spiders are a thing of fall, but these are just EWW!!!
• Woodpeckers - They don't bother me too much, but Bobby isn't a fan. I'm sure I'll change my mind when the cold weather kicks in.

I'm proud to say, I haven't seen a snake here yet and I hope it continues this way. The neighbor behind us (on the top of the hill) cleared out most of the hillside this weekend so I'm sure we're going to have refugees seeking shelter in our mess of a terrace in the back yard. I just pray we can get it cleaned up SOON!

All this aside, I still love my home... I think I'm just going to have to come up with an amazing defense plan and put it into action...