nature and nurture

take a look at that! i finally got brave enough to go for a shot of the eggs inside our mailbox. can you believe i finally captured it--and i promise, i didn't touch a thing. the zoom on our camera is amazing, and it's not even one of those super expensive ones, just a canon sure shot.

in other (outdoor) news, here's a shot of our garden now:
i finally got a soaker hose to water everything a little better. we have so much sand here that the soil just won't hold the water unless it rains (and we haven't rain for weeks it seems now). i forgot to take another photo of the two newest plants, just added on Sunday: arugula and cantelope. i also didn't include the sunflower patch, which you can barely see to the far left of the photo. i figured it will be more fun to share these little guys once they start to bloom.

before i share a couple of close-up shots of different veggies, i have to tell you a story. yesterday, gillian came into the living room and with an almost hysterical voice, said, "you have to believe me [she and her brother, like all kids, have been known to make up stories, so if she wants to be taken seriously she starts out with this phrase]: i just saw a....well...a....MOUSE in the garden!"

so i immediately did NOT believe her. i thought, "surely it was a squirrel." or maybe she didn't catch a good glimpse. i said, "it was probably just a big lizard." (we have lots of lizards--i mean LOTS. they are all tiny, but still...)

so the whole family (including the baby) went to gillian's room, where we piled on the couch and looked out the windows there, which conveniently overlook the garden patch. and there, we saw what she had seen...except it wasn't a mouse. it was a RAT. a very big one. it was not cute like a mouse at all. it wasn't in the garden, but it was sniffing around on the edge, between our yard and our neighbor's, where there is a fence and some high grass.

i immediately panicked: what if he is trying to steal this?

or these? (this is a close-up shot but i probably have 50 grape tomatoes growing!)

when i was telling a friend this morning what i had seen, she asked, "did he like your selection?" thankfully, the answer to that is a resounding NO. nothing was missing this morning when i woke up and rushed out first thing to check on everything. i was just sure my tomatoes would be missing and the pepper would be gone. lucky for me, he must be a rat snob and doesn't think my veggies are up to snuff with his tastebuds. let's hope it stays that way.