Nature galore!

Right now, our backyard is quite the happening place.  So much so that we can't even play back there.

Every year at the end of July, we welcome the big yellow jackets to our yard.  They are also known as cicada killers.  We may see up to five of these flying around at one time! Matt is even scared to mow the lawn back there and there is no way we can play on the swing set.  They will be here about a month.  They fly crazy and even slam into our back windows!

Even though the yellow jackets are huge and take up our backyard, they are quite interesting to watch.  They fly into the trees and paralyze the cicadas.  Then they fly the paralyzed cicadas back to their nest in the ground (we have seen this happen a couple of times) and they lay their eggs in their bodies.  I think they then eat the bodies, I'm not for sure there. They are impossible to kill, so we have learned the best thing to do is just leave them alone.

The other day Matt was working on his truck in the garage and a yellow jacket paid him a visit. Let's say that the yellow jacket is now a part of Courtney's bug collection. :)  Matt said it was half dead when he flew into the garage in the first place. Matt just finished him off with some bug spray which  usually doesn't work on the yellow jackets in the backyard.

We also have baby birds in our backyard. Quite a few years ago, Matt and the girls had bought me a bird house for mother's day.  It has hung in a tree and no bird has ever made a home in it until this summer.  About a month ago, we noticed there was a nest inside the bird house.  We were out back yesterday talking to our roofers and you could little birds tweeting from inside the birdhouse! Sure enough, when we looked in, there were three tiny birds in there!! We would love to know what kind they are, but we don't want to get too close either!

In addition to our friendly rabbits and other bugs, it is quite the nature center!