This guy crawled into our family room through narrow gap in screen door (that I've since fixed!):

 

We have also had THESE in our house:

This one was about two inches long. So far nobody has been stung, thank goodness.

Last week I found the skin that was shed off a very tiny baby scorpion. It was only about 1 cm long:

 

Which brings to mind my run-in with this kind of beast:

I'll tell you the whole story sometime.

This guy fell down the chimney at our house. We caught it and set it free.

It may have been one that had built a nest above our front door.

Another frequent visitor in our neighborhood is Javalinas. They don't seem to care one bit when Wishbone barks at them. They wander past nibbling on cactus and ignoring us.

This packrat was trespassing in the garage. I caught him in a tupperware (the picture below was taken through the plastic!) and we gave him a ride to the safety of the desert.

 

These guys come around and get drinks from our watering system:

It makes the dog crazy because it's right in front of a window and he can't get at them!

This was another guy who had sought shelter in our garage:

That's an inch scale -- he must have snuck in when the garage door was open.... the poor guy couldn't get out again. I'm sure he was happy to be free again after I caught him.

In addition to the bugs and beasts, we have nice cacti around our house and many of them bloom in the spring. This is a pincushion cactus -- the flower is only about an inch across:

The picture below is of a prickly pear cactus. An agave plant makes up the green background.

Page created in July 2000
(c) 2000, D. P. Birnie, III