Living in Beatrix Potter's World of Critters

Years ago I bought Beatrix Potter's storytime collection. This 350+ page book is filled with 14 different tales of little critters - Peter Rabbit, Squirrel Nutkin and Tom Kitten, just to name a few. Some of these "short stories" are rather long and wordy, so I haven't really read any to Micah...until this week. Him and I have been engrossed in it, and read each tale in the last few days! I think I was just as fascinated and captivated as he was.

It seems that this week we have not only been reading about little critters, but seeing quite a few of them too! Squirrels are super common in our yard, as are robins and sparrows. I've even spotted a cute little chipmunk or a rabbit. On rare occasions a beautiful blue jay or cardinal has made an appearance as well. However, just this week saw some racoons up in our tree:

In addition to the birds, squirrels and racoons, we've had our own ongoing tale of another little critter in our backyard - a woodchuck that we spotted earlier this spring. He's been burrowing under the backside of our garage and feasting off the acorns, grubs and shrubs in our backyard for months now (and maybe before we even lived here?).

He's cute, but he's also gotta go. So, we borrowed a live animal trap from some friends, and have tried various bait this week, but to no avail...until today! We finally caught him, and Scotty, Micah and I had quite the adventure of transporting and depositing our furry friend the groundhog into a new home (a nature preserve not far from our house).