Wild Visitors

We were visited by three wild creatures this weekend (perhaps they heard about the two souls who have high hopes for pets).

This is the only one that held still long enough for a clear photo:

This painted turtle wandered across our driveway Saturday afternoon (it was hanging out on third base in our kickball diamond when C found it).

Later Saturday evening M went out to find a pileated woodpecker chuffing at loose bark on a dead tree near our deck. Every time I clicked the shutter, though, it flew off to the next tree (this was the closest I've seen one of those birds--huge).

Then Sunday, E and Z discovered a mole wandering around the front yard and managed to herd it far from the hole it had dug near our front walk. I told them to leave it alone, but later saw from the kitchen window Z carrying a big metal bucket to show E something. Of course he'd scooped up the mole and was planning on keeping it for a pet, "just for a few days." I guess all those times I said he could keep a squirrel or a snowshoe hare for a pet if he could catch it were coming back to bite me! I convinced him that it would not be very happy to be above ground, even for a few days, and we nudged it out of the bucket near its hole, which it immediately paddled down.

A turtle, a woodpecker and a mole. Auspicious sign for the coming season? (Certainly more auspicious than the skunk that's been hanging around all summer--though the skunk has proved itself useful in digging up and dispatching hornet nests).