Yertle and friends

I was in the middle of a tutoring session this afternoon, when I received a text. It was from Phil. "Jake just found a 25 lb snapping turtle in the creek. We got pictures."
How do you respond to that? That's about all we have heard about tonight. The kids were so excited about it. We are of the opinion that maybe this turtle was nesting.
I know, some of you don't believe that Yertle the Turtle lives in our yard. So we have proof:




And yes, that is in our yard. In the creek I mentioned before. The kids are having a hay day with that creek, especially after it rains a lot. Which it has. 5-6 inches this week.


And just in case a turtle isn't enough, we get to listen to the "Peepers" all the time now that it is getting warmer. Frogs. Loud frogs. They live in the creek and the wetlands across the street. And they sing. All the time. Did I mention they were loud? Phil taught Jackson and Gabe how to catch them last week. And it kept them busy for hours. Proof again? Okay:



One of our favorite past times lately is sitting in the family room and looking out the big picture window at the birds visiting our bird feeder. We were given a cool Connecticut Bird Guide, and have had fun figuring out what birds we are looking at. We have a male cardinal and his girlfriend, a male hairy woodpecker and his girlfriend, several black capped chickadees, various finches, a prairie warbler, and at least one tufted titmouse ("little bird"). We had some blue jays, but they haven't been around for awhile. We just put the feeder out a week ago, so it is a lot of fun to see who is visiting. The squirrels are a little jealous, one climbed the pole but went back down when he realized that the suet was in cages. Even Jackson will look through the book to match up the birds. During the day, the birds compete with the frogs.
(Pictures are coming. Just don't know when. Have to take them first, haha!)