Voles and Bunnies and Toads, Oh My!

Living in the Midwest is still so bizarre in so many ways! I already posted about our adventures with the Bullfrog. If you didn't read it before, you can click HERE.

Back in April, I was looking at one of our fruit trees when something ran past me, low in the grass, really quickly. I figured it was a baby chipmunk since those are at least somewhat familiar to me now. I also noticed that we had damaged tracks in our grass surrounding the trees and the swing set. They looked a lot like this:


So, a few weeks later, we decided to clean out the disgusting sand box that was under the swing set. It was cracked and flooded and weeds were growing out of it. UGH! I started by bailing water out and some of it must have gone under the sand box because all of a sudden, this tiny little furry thing went scurrying past me. Then another.....then another.....then another. We had at least six of these little guys running across our lawn:

They looked like small, squat, very furry mice

Well, after screaming and laughing with the kids, I went inside to do some "research." I tried looking up Dormouse (because that was all I could think of) and eventually saw the words "See Vole." I had never even heard of a vole! Seriously, have you??? When we eventually pulled up the sandbox, I found a nice little nest of dried grass underneath. The thing that worries me most is wondering where those little guys are now!

We also have a cute brown bunny that visits our weed vegetable garden. I never got around to planting vegetables this year and sadly, there are a lot of thistles in there. And if you have ever read Watership Down, you know that Bunnies love thistles. Or is it dandelions? Hmmmm...I'll have to go find my book. Anyway, he loves something in the garden and hopefully, I'll get a picture of him soon.

And lastly, Malia got a shock of her own when she went to turn on the hose about two weeks ago. This little guy was waiting for her:

Of course, we had to do a photo shoot:



Then we let him go in the neighbor's yard so Lola wouldn't bother him.


So, there are some more things to file under "Things that never happened to us in Long Beach!"