home again. but I almost went back to the hotel last night.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

21. The scariest wildlife I usually see in my yard is the occasional chipmunk.

Once in awhile a raccoon wanders through, and I saw a possum in the garden last summer. There is something to be said for living in a place where the winters would freeze the balls off a brass monkey: No venomous snakes, no scorpions, no brown recluse or black widow spiders. There are a few sluggish, docile timber rattlers in the Mississippi River bluffs but they are rarely seen, and there are many, many mosquitoes and black flies. You get away from the city and there are bears, coyotes, wolves and the occasional mountain lion, all of which could eat you but normally don't; and I never find any of them in my kitchen where I have to kill them with a shovel.

Still, the scenery in your neck of the woods does look spectacular...