I think our large visitor was a yellow bellied water snake. It was more stinky than showing a mouth at me, but you know no snake likes to be messed with and any bite can hurt or become infected. I just give them all a wide berth and let them go in their way. Interesting TX snake photos.

The guys who put in the two heat pumps in this house back in 2002 told me one afternoon "we killed a cottonmouth in your yard. You gotta be careful living down here by the water." I walked over and found a poor tiny earth snake mangled but still slightly alive. I put it out of it's misery and asked the guys to leave my critters alone. Good thing they didn't realize the place is a swiss cheese of spider holes around the yard. I have some big honker tarantulas here. Biggest one I've ever seen was gecko hunting on the outside of my bathroom window screen in June.

Last night Dylan (age 13) came in and said "Mom, I killed this spider in my room and it must have been pregnant because all of a sudden there were all of these little baby spiders running all over the floor." It took a while to wipe up the dust, the water he'd sprayed to try to slow them, and the frisky spiderlings themselves. I think that's a wolf spider that lugs it's young around like that, though the nearly-departed (also slightly twitching) parent was not in a state for easy identification.

The wildlife starts moving around the property this time of year and some of it gets in the house. The cats usually take care of that. There was a dead gecko on the front porch a couple of nights ago, perhaps a casualty of the front door, and it was swarmed by ants. By morning the only thing in evidence was a slim little spine lying on the pavement.

All of this wildlife presence and examination is fine with the kids. (But don't tell them that I sometimes let the dogs lick off human plates and bowls--that would gross them out.)