The reason we don't have zoo passes

The above images were taken from my back yard. Where my children play. To be fair, there is a chain link fence (with wide gaping openings at the bottom) separating our yard from the lake. I had the fortunate experience of watching this guy eat lunch the other day. Took him about nine hours to chew down this ill-fated leather back turtle, who is also quite ugly himself. Actually kinda hard to feel bad for the guy- he looks so squishy and disgusting. Ugly eating ugly seems okay to me- so long as I never see him eating one of the frolicking deer or the bald eagle who comes in the evenings. I won't say I haven't felt a concern for the extremities and digits of my children. I think they are more scared of me than I am of them though. I think we've seen three different gators lurking. The big guy seems to be on to my picture stalking and has started to go in the water when he hears my patio door open.

In our neighborhood thus far we have encountered gators, deer (always running the streets and will walk along side you), bunnies, coyotes, foxes, two black bears which frequently eat our trash, wild turkeys, rattlesnakes (neighbors have recently found a 6 footer and a 3 footer coiled up in their backyards), and size 8.5 roaches (I know this because they were the size of my shoes). Braden had a very American commercial-esque moment the other day as he was outside grilling: the national anthem was playing as it does everyday at 5, two fighters were flying overhead, and the bald eagle landed by the lake. The eagle is my new favorite pet to watch, as I do not fear he will swoop up my children. There is a small sick part of me that wouldn't mind seeing him snatch up one of the many white Harons prancing out back, just to witness the circle of life.

(side note: the other day in scripture time I asked Anabelle if she knew who Harod was and she said, "yeah, those big white birds outside").

So who wants to come visit?