Wild America in Our Backyard

We live on a cul-de-sac. 

In a neighborhood. 

In the suburbs. 

But the wildlife in our backyard don't know it. Seriously, it's like a jungle out there.

Lee didn't want to live in a neighborhood. If he could have his way he'd be as far out in the boonies as possible on 10 acres of land with nothing but trees and critters to keep him company. Needless to say, 10 acres of land in the Triangle area was not in our price range, so  we ended up in neighborhood. One of the reasons we picked our house though was the large (for this area) and private backyard that backs up to a wooded area. 

One day we came to visit the house while it was still being finished and a deer came wandering through the backyard. I think that finally sold Lee on the house, because it made him feel right at home.

Soon after we moved in, we discovered the fox. He hung out in the woods behind our house and was Lee's little pet - he was pretty obsessed with him. Here's what he looked like when we first moved in:

We hadn't seen him in a while but he has turned up again recently. Now that we have Sugar though Lee has turned all protective Papa Bear and was NOT happy when the fox came into the yard late one night and started barking at Sugar. He's probably doubled in size since this pic and is definitely NOT welcome in our yard anymore. 

You'd think that Sugar would scare animals away from our yard, but she seems to attract them. Or maybe it's just the fact that she goes nuts when she sees something in the yard so we take notice of it more than we used to. In the past two weeks, in addition to the fox, we've encountered this turtle (you would've thought it was a grizzly bear from the way Sugar was freaking out):

And multiple rabbits. And this deer:

Notice Sugar in the right corner and the deer towards the left, paying the dog absolutely no mind. Sugar didn't bark at the deer though, she was just very interested in it - I think she's smart enough not to bark at things bigger than her. That's probably a good rule of thumb in life.

So there you have it, our very own version of Marty Stouffer's Wild America.