I would feel more legitimate calling these nature shots if I hadn't shot them in various yards

My backyard is positively crawling with "city wildlife" (i.e. chipmunks, squirrels, sparrows, and sometimes even ducks). There's a lady who sets out water bowls, popcorn, and bird seed for them every day so you can imagine why they'd be drawn here. In my backyard, there are anywhere between three and a half dozen chipmunks who hang out regularly (though I think only one of them beds down here). There's one that lives in the crack between the porch and the wall right in front of the front door. I refer to him as Merriwether (though unless their identities can be proven otherwise, I refer to all chipmunks on my property as "Merriwether"). Yesterday, I spent way too much time getting too know these little critters.


This is Merriwether proper. He seems to be one of the smaller and more timid of the local chipmunks. He also appears to have some sort of battle scar on his nose.


This one I'm calling Bernice. She's eating a helicopter. Bernice is pretty big by chipmunk standards and not really afraid of people. For those reasons, I assume that she lives at the house of Bird Seed Lady who lives two houses down.

These are the only ones I got good pictures of (as Justin said, "it's hard to take pictures of little things with high metabolisms"). The other chipmunks that I see have a tendency to get chased off too, usually by Merriwether. Though small, I imagine he's scrappy. My goal for the summer is to get Merriwether to eat out of my hand.

I bet that after all that chipmunk talk, you guys probably think I'm crazy.

Today me and Justin went to Davenport and hung out with his grandparents. Here are a couple of photos from their front yard.




It's hard to tell, but there are actually two of those waspy things on that flower. I bet they're doing it.


Speaking of bugs, Iowa swarms with gnats in the summer. With all the rain we've had, it's been especially horrible. It's almost unbearable to go outside when there's no wind. I come from Arkansas which is really only less buggy than the Amazon but even there we don't have swarms of gnats roving the sidewalks. Gross.

When we were at Justin's parents' house, his mom told me that the gnats are actually killing chickens, especially chicks. They bite at the chicks' faces so they all crowd up together and chicks not being terribly bright, they sometimes suffocate each other. Also, the gnats can block up their nasal passages and they'll suffocate that way. Or, as if you really need to hear another reason how gnats are bad, they can also drain enough blood from the chickens to make them anemic. One of Justin's mom's friends lost 18 chicks overnight. Even grosser.

Since I'm on this bug kick, I appear to have gotten stung by some sort of buggin getting into the car to come home from Justin's. When I got home, I had broken out into a slight rash. It's red, bumpy, itchy, and just downright unpleasant. I think I might spend the next couple of days enjoying the good ol' indoors.