In the Garden and the Super Cute Little Zoo

 

So I'm just digging away in the backyard, planting my impatiens in the big flower pot like I do every year, when SURPRISE!  I found a big white egg was already planted!  First I assumed it was a turtle egg, since we have several turtles that lay eggs in our yard every year.  

Then I wondered how a turtle would be able to climb a flower pot to lay an egg?  Okay, very unlikely. So I did some online checking and discovered it most likely was a sly little fox that probably stole one of the duck eggs from the pond a block away.  Apparently they like to do that type of thing and then hide the egg(s) for later.  I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it so I just left it right where I found it.

And yep, wouldn't you know a couple of days later that flower pot had been dug into again.  I didn't check to see if the egg was gone -- I didn't really want to know!

I was so excited to pick the first handful of strawberries from our garden...ever!  We planted these last year and whoa, they sure like to spread!  We've been getting about 8 to 10 strawberries a day which makes me sooo happy, I wish they were around all summer!

It's hard to imagine they come from such humble beginnings, then spread like weeds!  But that's okay, I love to see them branch out and take root.

We had a lot of fun visiting a sweet little zoo in Belvedere, IL recently.  Check out the animal sign.  Don't you just want to take that home with you?  It's so perfectly aged.  They did have one zebra but I didn't get close enough to take a picture. 

  

But I did get a photo of this little hedgehog!  Look at that face, don't you just want to take him home with you too?

They showed us several baby animals that we were allowed to pet.  These two are baby wolves, but they were too young to touch.  They couldn't stop yawning.  I guess we were too much excitement for them.

They called these llamas, but I've never seen animals like these.  These guys were pretty friendly!

This is Casanova, a horse that likes to be petted like a cat.

 He'll let you know exactly where he wants petted.  Pretty cool.

Okay, here we go.  This year's backyard summer project.  We've lived in our house 7 years and obviously still can't grow grass in the back yard.  When it rains, it stays muddy for 3 days.  Three days!  So we decided if we can't grow grass, then lets cover it with pea gravel and turn the area into a fire pit!  (Yaaay!)  And add some bushes and flowers!  (Yaaay!)  Lemons into lemonade,right?!

Here's the start of it...the pea gravel.  This is definitely a work in process so I will have to update more on this later.  And I'm sure again later.  I've decided to name it phase I, phase II, phase III, etc.

As you can see, my daughter thoroughly enjoyed the rock pile.  I don't blame her, I climbed it as well.  I just happened to have a shovel in my hand and called it "work".