a peek inside the fishbowl

One of the things I like to think we did right as parents was to raise a couple of girls who aren’t afraid of picking up toads, frogs, bugs, and other creatures of the woods.

I have Mark to thank for that. He’s not afraid. I’ll touch any of the aforementioned but I’m certainly not comfortable enough to reach out and nab them like he does.

There is a lot of wildlife at Achray, of which we only saw a fraction. (It’s hard to go wildlife watching with jingly children.) The creatures we we DID see while we were at Achray included:

Tadpoles and frogs:

Toads (this one was found in the stump of a hollow log):

Snakes (this is a baby water snake):

Deer (Sadly, no pics of these)

Various Rodentia (they pose for peanuts!):

Birds (Gulls, Mergansers, Loons, Robins, wee Sandpiper things, Ravens and Blue Jays):

More insects than you can shake a stick at:

Someone who nibbled the guest book for a certain hiking trail:

And the icing on the cake (if you can call something this slimy “icing”)…. the Biggest Leech We’ve Ever Seen:

It was interesting to observe the universal feeling of repulsion everyone experienced upon seeing this thing. *shiver*

All of these animal encounters occurred without incident except for the garter snake. Sarah found a full-grown adult snake and grabbed it by the tail. And it bit her. Now she knows not to do that.

But I am proud of Sarah. After she was bit by the snake and realized there were giant leeches in the lake I totally expected her to shy away from snakes and open water, but she was as enthusiastic as ever. She went swimming and snake hunting as if nothing happened. And she’s pretty excited to be able to tell her “snake bite” story to her friends. That’s my girl!