Kibble-sitting

We had the joy of Kibble-sitting this past weekend. Classic, Not-so-classic, Scarlet & Bubba went away this past weekend and we watched their little guinea pig named Kibble. He is so darn cute!



For the first day he was with us he wouldn't come out of his pig-loo (the little pink house). He literally picked it up and walked around his cage in it. I believe he is part turtle. Even at feeding time he picked up his pig-loo and walked right over to his feeding dish. He would dart his little head out, pick up a morsel and shoot back inside. It was hilarious.

Finally he warmed up to us here at the Livin' household and we got to pet him and love him a couple times. He went home last night with Not-so-classic. I know the boys are sad to see him leave. I don't know...maybe we will have to acquire a Kibble too. For now we will look forward to watching him anytime they are away.

We Had Company This Past Weekend

Meet George. He showed up this weekend in our neighbors yard
and they sent him over to ours since we had boys. They thought
the kids would get a kick out of him and they were right.

He looks almost like he's smiling. I think he likes us. We sure
fed him enough fruit.

Our other distinguished guest was our dear friends son
Winston Churchill. He is just the greatest friend for our
boys. They played with George and then went back to
playing hours of Axis & Allies. Great game if you are into
World domination. I was Mother Russia. I got my booty kicked
by Winston who was Germany. Next time though Mother Russia
won't be so merciful!!!

Both George and Winston went home Monday afternoon. Winston went
back to his beautiful family and we are not sure where George headed
off too. I think he probably had a wife and kids some where and headed
back home. The boys were trying desperately to let us keep him
but my Knight won. It was a great weekend!!

Yes It Was A Rattle Snake

The snake itself was 4 feet long and about 3 inches

in diameter. He was one big snake.

***If you click on the pictures you can see it up close and personal.

It wasn't a Eastern Diamondback Rattler, thankfully, but a Timber Rattler. Timber Rattlers are less aggressive and very docile. It seemed to be about 8 years old making it mature and deadly. You can count the number of buttons on the rattle to determine the age. 1 button for every year. Technically they are only poisonous 60% of the time. 30% of the time they will have dry strikes, where they bite without releasing any poison. 

Shaggy found it first only 3 feet in front of us on the trail. It shook it's rattle to let us know it was there but never even turned towards us. After we all gathered around it, it slowly made it's way across the path and through the little creek on our left. There it found a large rock to sun itself. It was quite awesome to see this creature in it's natural habitat. 4 other Rattlers were sighted on the trail. This is a very active season for them until the end of Sept. So there you have it. Put me in the ocean and I am terrified of sharks but give me a poisonous snake any day. We finished climbing the mountain and made it home safe and sound. I know what the boys are going to tell their classmates today about.

A Sunday Hike With A Deadly Encounter

So are there any Herpetologists out there who can ID our infamous guest. You will find him in the slide show. We came across him hiking in a local State Park. We have always kept our eyes out for them but this was the first time we came face-to-face only 3 feet away. It was a very beautiful creature but I will let you have a look. I will post more on our encounter tomorrow but for now leave a comment if you think you know what this creature is and your reaction if you came across it hiking with your family.
*** The slide show is sort of grainy because of the transfer from iPhoto to Quick Time. Sorry about that. I hope you can still get a good glimpse of our friend.

Going Nuts!!!

So Saturday we decided to get the boys bikes out of the shed, get our rakes and gardening stuff out and check on the lawn mower. My Knight also got my flower pots out just to prepare for spring. He came across one filled with leaves in it and neither of us could remember putting them in there. We just assumed one of the boys must have.Well low and behold when my Knight dumped out the container two little baby squirrels tumbled out onto the ground. The boys were going crazy with excitement on our new find.



Everyone was excited and happy until these little guys began to sing and their crazed mother almost jumped my husband and chased the boys around the backyard. Quickly we scooped them back up, put them back into the flower pot, leaves and all.
We had to keep an eye on the mother because we were not sure how close she was going to come. A couple of times she ran up to my husbands feet. He began dancing around trying not to dump the pot again. It was quite the scene with the boys yelling and screaming and running wildly in the back yard. My husband kept yelling at me "Where is she? Is she going to get me?" I just took pictures and laughed. They are now back in our shed. We will leave them alone for another 3 weeks before they get evicted. By then they should be old enough if they haven't moved yet. We hauled all of our stuff under the over hang beside our house not to disturb them again. Yup, just another crazy day here!

Froggy vs. Dust Bunny

Some may say it isn't true but this is a true story. Anything is possible at our wacky home. I am actually still amazed myself. The other day we were running around the house during chores and homework. While I was picking up, out of the corner of my eye I saw something on the floor (not unusual). When I looked down I realized one of the boys had left a toy rubber frog on the floor. Oddly enough it was tangled in a dust bunny. I guess that's not really odd because the boys are always dropping things behind the couch and bouncing things under cabinets. But why here in the middle of the hall.

Well I bent down to retrieve the dusty toy when to my surprise it moved!!! Or did it? Maybe the toxic fumes are finally getting to me. So I reached for it again and to my amazement it moved again. A little freaked out I called for the boys and Shaggy and Rocker came to my rescue. After a thorough analysis of the sitch I realized it was indeed a real frog. It had hopped around our house and got tangled up in a dust bunny. Boy I guess I need some spring cleaning ASAP if our home is that dangerous to the welfare of frogs.

The compassionate animal loving side of me came through and we gave Kermit a bath, freeing him from his dusty chains that had imprisoned him. Then we all looked for more info on him in a book Rocker had about various outdoor critters. He is a bonefide tree frog not a toad. After the bath and on closer inspection you could see the little sticky pads on his feet. So Shaggy, Rocker & Drama King began sticking Kermit to everything in our home(or at least trying to he fell a couple of times). Rescuing the poor frog we transferred him back to our yard. Apparently they dig deep into mud and dirt and hibernate during the winter. Somehow he was a little confused on the season and came to the surface to early. I don't blame him for the confusion, I think I am a little confused myself with which season we are in. So there you have it. No one fessed up on how this critter entered our house. I just hope this is not a sign of an on coming plague or something.