Critter Country 3

I had planned for this week's post to be the debut of our latest family photo. Unfortunately, the wind and a fussy baby conspired to make sure none of the pictures we planned turned out halfway decent. As evidence, this photo won the "Most Likely to Be Framed" award:

My apologies to anyone who finds this hand gesture offensive. In Ukraine it is just hilarious. (Since your mind is now primed for offensive gestures, let me assure you that Megan is not, in fact, flipping the bird. Well... probably not.)

Fortunately, I found myself inundated with new critter pictures, so I'm happy to present the third installment of Critter Country. You'll have to forgive the poor resolution on many of the pictures. No matter how many times I tell them or how loud I yell it, the animals are pretty bad at waiting for me to get the good camera, so my camera phone has to suffice.

Behold the reason we are afraid to keep our windows open at night:

I'm amazed that Lunesta would use this moth as a mascot, since the thought of it attacking me in the night made me leery of sleeping altogether.

I thought for sure that the Luna Moth was going to take the cake for best bug picture this time around. Unfortunately for him, we found this hilarious inch worm who apparently loves Buddy Holly:

He even seemed to have pretty good rhythm.

We've been watching our baby turkey grow, but I am somewhat suspicious that it might turn out to actually be an ostrich.

Which would be a way better story than the ugly duckling, since rather than just showing up all those who once laughed at him, he could crush them. That's a moral you can take right to the bank.

And our friend Roger the chipmunk has been up to his old tricks.

Apparently the amount of nuts in a chipmunk's cheeks is inversely proportional to their fear of humans. Cuteness seems to be their greatest defense.

Our best find this time around was a ground hog.

He was sad because someone called him a Wood Chuck, but nobody called him a Whistle Pig.

The ground hog was actually stuck at this fence. He couldn't figure out how to get through and apparently didn't feel like just moving on. Fortunately, some folks from the UConn grounds crew came by and helped him cross the road to terrorize the golf course.

Finally, we present our most underrepresented class of critters: the amphibians.

Here is a Vermont salamander. They are like regular salamanders, except they hate Wal-Mart.

We were out playing in the grass in front of our apartment when we found this little guy minding his own business:

Little did he know the kind of trouble he was in for.

"What do we have here?"

Topher was a little apathetic to begin with, but I think that once he figured out that we would be upset if he were to put it in his mouth, we couldn't hold him back.

Fortunately, the frog got away with nothing more serious than a poke in the eye. Topher drowned his sorrows by trying to shove a couple rocks in his mouth.

And before I go, I'm not sure if this is Topher's impression of a saxophonist or an elephant, so I'll include it here. Either way, Kenny G should eat his heart out.