New Backyard Visitors

The duck family has come and gone.

The rat family has come and hopefully gone.

and now we have a raccoon family....

mama and three babies

Mama hopped off the fence so easily, but the three babies were a bit more reluctant and scared to get down. They were also all very attentive to us and what we were doing. Mama looked on (and hissed) from the other side of the fence and babies stayed put.  

At one point mama attempted to climb back up, but then the babies started coming down....only to discover it wasn't as easy as they had thought.

Unfortunately, when the babies did finally make it down, they were on the wrong side of the fence - they were in our backyard. Two managed to climb under the gate, but the third was in our yard for quite a long time. Finally I went out and opened this little gate and it found its way out.

In other news, it's always a joy to see the butterflies stopping for a bit on the flowers.