Two years ago we bought a little house in a village near a lake. Our entire property is only fifty feet by seventy-five feet. Mowing takes fifteen minutes. Our parking area takes not much more than that to keep plowed. Both giant pluses in my book. One unexpected side benefit of our new home is the incredible amount of wildlife we see in our tiny backyard.
This duck couple waddled around our neighborhood last year. They'd take a walk down our street every evening, stopping now and then to rest under a tree in someone's front yard, or take a break in our bushes. Here they've finished their break and are off to visit one of the neighbors. I haven't seen them this year. I miss seeing them take their walks together.
One type of wildlife we have plenty of is the woodchuck. There is a family living in a burrow under the three yards that meet behind our house. They have a number of holes to get in an out and while we've tried live traps, the critters are pretty darn smart. They love the crab apples that fall from our tree. You can see one of them enjoying dinner in our back yard. We've pretty much resigned ourselves to sharing the space with them.
Some of the wildlife I sit and watch from my back porch I haven't been able to get pictures of. This spring I laughed for a good half hour watching two rabbits playing together, running through our yard, into the neighbors', around the trees, back into our yard, hiding behind the bushes, and dashing out again. We have squirrels and chipmunks and we get colorful birds like cardinals and bluejays and finches. Last spring we had the most surprising wildlife visitor of all.
My husband and I were having breakfast on our back porch one morning when this fawn suddenly appeared in our yard. We silently sipped our coffee as the baby deer walked around our yard and then settled down in some long grass in the yard behind ours. My husband quietly got his camera and walked over and took several pictures. The fawn didn't seem to be afraid. He rested there for a little while and then took off.
I'm enjoying the view from my back porch. I never know what's going to appear. I'll have to remember to keep my camera handy and if those seven dwarfs ever show up, I'll be sure to share the pictures.
Natasha
www.natashamoore.com
In these two picture you can see why they're called the Smokies. This fog, (mist or clouds) often lies in the valleys or sometimes cloaks the tops of the mountains. The morning we left, for instance, all we could see outside was white. But on the day or two before, the fog was lower, which gave a picturesque view. 
We drove to the most popular part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park called Cades Cove which is a preserved 1800s community with log cabins, barns, fields and churches. 
Lots of wildlife live here including deer, black bears, turkeys, coyotes, etc. We saw several deer and turkeys this time. I was hoping to see a bear with a cub but no such luck. 
I felt I was back in Scotland (though he wasn't wearing a kilt.) I later saw that nearby Gatlinburg was hosting a Scottish Games. Our area has a lot of Scottish or Highland Games and other Scottish or Scots-Irish influences.
