This is one of my favorite times of the year to be outside at twilight. The Whipporwills sound so pretty and by that time chores are done. It's time to get ready for bed, but it's nice to enjoy the evening cool.

George
Tahlequah

I agree, George. The weather is cool enough, but not cold, it's still a little light out, so you can see everything, and the bugs aren't too bad yet.

Tisha,

We did the same thing last night. I noticed how nice it was and made the family shut the tv off and come outside with me. We lit up some of yard candles and sat on the swing. However, we did have a lot of mosquitos here though, as opposed to the previous evening. Sheri

It is lovely at night and we are enjoying it too. Tonight we had lightning bugs! We had some mosquitoes too, but not very many.

Dawn

Oooh! I haven't seen any lightning bugs yet. :-) I did get a mosquito bite on my elbow last night though. :-(

The lightning bugs last night were the first we've seen and I'm about 100 miles south of y'all, so yours should be appearing soon.

We're also starting to see lots more dragonflies, and this morning a rather large turtle(her shell is about the size of a dinner plate) was laying eggs in a hole she dug in my shrub bed on the north side of the house. (Last year she laid them under the plum tree in the yard.) I love spring and all the wildlife!

Dawn

Oooh! That's so neat, about the turtle.

We don't have any "unique" wildlife over here on the SW side of OKC. The most "exotic" we've had at this house so far, was a full grown RAT that got caught in a live trap we had set out.

It looked like it was someone's pet at one time. It was a pretty cream and dark brown color. But it still gave me the willies.

A few mosquitoes...he he. We have a few thousand right now I think. With all of the painting going on, every plant along the foundation of the house has been disturbed. I have moved all of my containers while I was tying up tomato plants. I have found all of their hiding places. They can carry you off and drop you off down the block.

My husband walked out and saw two ducks in our yard today. Sometimes at night we see red fox and I love that.

Soonergrandmom - we used to see the red foxes when we came to Grand Lake. A beautiful sight they are! We saw a mama one time with her kits. It was way cool!

Susan

When we moved here a family of fox lived across the street underneath a shed at a vacant house. They had a litter there. We would stand by the fence and watch them play and I guess they knew that we wouldn't hurt them. When the house sold they had to find a new home. For a long time, I saw them every night about dusk. DH said one was just like a dog. He would stand there until I put food out, then walk up and get it with me still on the porch. Then we got lots of new neighbors, with lots of big dogs and I don't see them as much. You could never leave food for them because the dogs would find it first. I still see them when I drive through the area at night, but haven't seen one in my yard in a long time. Too bad.

I love the foxes and we don't see them very often because they are rather shy and tend to remain in the heavy cover of the woods.

Tish, Let me tell you about wildlife. We specifically chose to move way out here to the boondocks of southern Oklahoma (from Fort Worth, Texas,) in 1999, because we wanted to live in a remote, rural area with lots of wildlife. All I can say is that you need to be careful what you wish for. Got wildlife? Oh, yes, we do.

Since moving here, we see the following on a regular basis: coyotes, deer, rabbits, possums, armadilloes, skunks, ferrets, foxes, bobcats, ring-tailed cats, raccoons, field mice and voles (cats keep them under control on the acre or two closest to the house), gophers, moles, snakes, lizards, skinks, newts, birds of all kinds, bees, butterflies, bats, dragonflies and damselflies, clearwing hummingbird moths and sphix moths, and so many more than I could ever list. Some of my favorites are the rabbits, glass lizards, dragonflies, hummingbirds, all the other birds, the moths, the deer (most of the time) and the bats. Some of my least favorites are the venomous snakes and the skeeters and chiggers. Oh, and the skunks.

Rarely, but once every couple of years or so, we have encounters with the tawny-coated mountain lions and the black panthers. When that happens, it scares me to death. I had a nearby mountain lion roar at me in the darkness one night, and I almost dropped dead of fright right there on the spot. A neighbor who lives about a mile up the road heard the thing roar and came to check on us. My son had an even closer encounter with a black panther in our driveway one night. Scarey. And, even though we have never had to run for our lives to get away from feral pigs, some of our neighbors have. We HAVE had feral pigs living at the back of our property, but they haven't come closer to the house than a few hundred feet.

And then there are the white-tail deer, with whom we have a love-hate relationship. Ninety percent of the time, we love them. The ten percent of the time that I find them in the garden devouring whatever crop sounds good to them at the moment, that's the time I don't love them. The next door neighbor whose property is west of us feeds them all winter, then fights to keep them out of his garden the rest of the year. So do we. I can't bear to see them get skinny and starving in the winter. Sometimes in the winter and early spring, we have 6 or 8 out behind the barn eating the deer corn. In the spring, though, I try to run them off.....unless a doe brings her fawn or fawns up to the house to show them off, which they sometimes do. Then, I ooh and ahh over the pretty babies, tell the does to wait, and I get a bucket or two of henscratch (we don't keep deer corn handy in the warm months) and pour it on the ground for the does. While the does eat, they leave the babies on the edge of the woods near my garden, almost as if they expect me to "babysit". It happens about every other year or so and is always a "magical moment". I wouldn't say our little herd of deer are "tame" but they certainly are comfortable around us. (But I am careful to never get too close to them or let them get too close to me.) And, it is only our does who are relaxed and comfortable around us....the occasional buck who is passing through isn't nearly as friendly.

My all-time favorite, most incredibly wonderful wildlife experience was a pair of bald eagles in the summer of 2004. I would see them sitting on top of a big old metal pole barn used for hay storage at an old farm where no one lived any longer, although cattle were on the land. That place is about a mile and a half from our place, and I would see the eagles while walking the dogs or jogging. I saw them several times. It was awesome. Twice they flew right over our house, and the friend of ours (who, tragically, died of cancer the following year) who was building our garage/barn saw them too. It was one of those great moments where you see something so special that you can't believe you're seeing it. Since then, there have been other bald and golden eagles overwintering in the area. It IS always special to see them, but nothing is quite as special as that summer to me.

The bobcats can be a problem for our pets, so we chase them off when they appear. Last year one of the bobcats got in the habit of sitting in my veggie garden. And, when a human appeared, he really didn't want to leave either. My son chased him off several times by running at him, waving his arms and yelling. The darn thing kept coming back. Finally, DS fired a gun into the ground behind the bobcat, and that cat finally understood he wasn't welcome in the garden.

So, if you WANT wildlife, we've got it.....but sometimes more than we really want, need or can feed!

Dawn

Keith's family lives near Friendship (outside of Altus) so I get my fill of wildlife when we're out there. LOL

I'm such a city girl. They make fun of me for it. The horses scare me (got bucked off once when I was little and almost trampled), I hate the huge grasshoppers in the summertime, and I get totally aggravated when my dog rolls in the horse poo. But to them, it's just every day life, so they make fun of me for all of it.

I do like watching the birds out there, and seeing the occassional jackrabbit.

Once, when Keith's brother and SIL were living in a trailer on his parent's property (about 5 years ago) Keith and I were sleeping in the living room, on the couch (it was about 3am) and a coyote tried to get in through the doggie door. I about died. Too close for comfort!

I grew up in the city, but had grandparents and other relatives in the country, so I always felt at home in the country, even when I was a kid.

I'm NOT a huge fan of horses and cows either. I don't like to get too close to any animal that can trample me. : ) I do adore the babies. And, if we are driving up the road and cows are in the road, I always get out and try to put them back into their pasture.....luckily for me, they don't know I am more scared of them than they are of me.

And, about that dog rolling in the horse poo.....we have some neighbors (WONDERFUL neighbors) who are very into cutting horses and team roping and team penning and all that stuff. They have some very smart cow dogs who are incredibly well-trained. One day, one of their younger dogs rolled in some cow poo, got sick and died. A necropsy (I think that is what they call an autopsy for animals) revealed he had picked up an e-coli infection. He probably had a cut or scratch on his body when he rolled in the manure, and the e-coli entered his body that way. It was sad. So, I'm not a fan of dogs rolling in manure (or on dead animals they find) because I know a serious consequence can result from that seemingly silly moment.

Today on the news, there was footage of a black panther trying to get through a woman's front door. (She filmed it from inside the house while waiting for the police to arrive). She was calmer than I would have been.

I like wildlife, but some of it is better seen from a distance.

Dawn

Thanks for the info, Dawn. Just one more thing to add to my defense next time they let her do it while I'm inside, and I freak out!

Poor Jaz (my dog) she's just a city girl too. LOL She's an Australian Cattle Dog, but she's all city-fied (she's in her crate, in an air conditioned room, as we speak). She's spoiled rotten. But she does love a good roll in the stink. No more of that for her for sure now. :-)

See, she can have just as much fun rolling on grass and cement! :-D

{{gwi:135775}}

Tish,

Jaz always looks like the happiest dog in the world, doesn't she!

Dawn