Backyard wildlife

The back of our house has a set of beautiful french doors leading out to our back yard. It is very private, so we generally leave them open all night and morning, only closing them in the high sun of the day. Soon after moving in we met "Oink," our next door neighbor's cat, who seems to think our yard is just an extension of his (hers?).



Now we look forward to hearing Oink's little bell in the morning (when we were still unpacking we awoke to him playing with a grasshopper in a box in the back yard). He'll come up to get pet, roll around, and sometimes even meow for attention, but he never tries to come inside. This is his favorite spot.



He also enjoys watching the birds and playing with the fallen apples.



We also have a family of quails in the backyard! There used to be a back alley behind our block, but it has been gated off on either side of our house. This gate has a remote that opens it and we do have right-of-way access on this side to use the driveway, although street parking is not a problem around here.



The quail babies are so tiny!



We also have Praying Mantises! I was out cutting some sunflowers for a vase when I almost reached out and grabbed this guy!

Outside Views

Here is the view from the corner of our street southwest toward the Wasatch Mountains and some nice clouds.


One of the handy things if you're a runner, is that the streets and avenues are all stamped on the sidewalks at intersections. The blocks are all a tenth of a mile, making them not line up with the rest of the city grid, but making it very easy for planning a running route on the fly.



Fortunately we have a private back yard, because this is the view from our shower window...



It looks out over our birdfeeders and patio.



And this is the view from my office window - literally behind my monitors. The small deck belongs to Oink's owners.



Just below my office window is our grill, which is hooked right into the gas line, so no need for tanks (the backyard also comes with one of those outdoor heaters, like they have for smokers at restaurants, that does run on a propane tank, but we won't be needing that for a while!). We grilled some harissa marinated chicken for lunch on Sunday. The peppers in the harissa came from the pepper farm we are going to have the wedding at!