Animal pics from our house

Mark loves Mickey....and he loves to play with him too. He likes sticking one of Mickey's babies in his pocket and watching what he does.....See how he is holding his foot up? He takes it really serious. His babies are like gold to him :)
He eventually comes to get it...and he is quick too!! He LOVES his babies..he is SO rotten :)

When I went out to let the dogs out this morning....this is what we saw in the yard! At first, I thought it was the black & white wild momma cat that lives in the neighborhood...but, then I took a second look. I hurriedly grabbed the dogs and ran in the house for my camera. (Thinking of course, I am definately going to blog this :) When I came back out and after taking the pic, I realized there was something very wrong with the skunk. It had evidentally been hit by a car and was having great difficulties just moving its back legs across the yard. We have been so bothered by the skunks in the last couple of months...really badly. There for a while we were smelling it almost every night. Mark had went to get something out of our old shed at the back of the property and opened the door and was greeted by one. Thankfully, he got the door shut before it sprayed him. So, I hate to say it...but I won't miss this guy. I called animal control, but no one called me back. It ended up crawling away...south of our house, hopefully to die. I hated that Mark wasn't here. Maybe he or one of his buddies could of put it out of it's misery. I'm just glad that me and the dogs didn't get sprayed :)

Saturday night we had another visitor by the house. It was very warm here over the weekend. 58 and 59 degrees. It was lovely...like spring :) My crocuses are blooming and some of the trees have buds on them. Mark was out in the building out back and I had came out to check on him. I was standing in the doorway and he looked at me and said...."go in the house and get your camera." I said..."why?" He said, " turn around and look in the bush." When I did...this is what I saw! Can you tell what it is? I don't know how to make the picture bigger..and my camera doesn't do very well at taking pictures in the dark. Mark walked up very close with Sam and I standing behind him with me holding the camera out, trying desperately to get a good picture. This was about as good as I could get.....If you can't tell...it's a possum. Or do they call it an O'possum? He didn't growl or hiss at us...but I was just a little bit scared of him. They sure are strange looking. We didn't bother him though. We just went in the house and he finally went on his way. It was really neat for Sam to get to see it up so closely. I just wish we could get that lucky with an owl. I would love for Sam to see one up close. They are so neat to look at and to listen too. We have on occasion had deer in the yard. The neighbors have all seen them, but we haven't got to yet. I'm sure once we get the garden going, that they'll be back.

If I could ask everyone to still remember my family in their prayers. Especially my oldest son...he is going through some very serious problems...and it is affecting the whole family. Also, Sam. With the stress with Zachary...it is not helping Sam with his tourettes at all. His tourettes have been the worst that they have been in a very long time. He is hurting constantly every day from the severe tics. His back and kneck, and now his eyes from blinking them so much. His vocal tics are to the point of pretty much yelling. It is hard to watch him going through this. It is making it very, very difficult to even get school work done. He is taking his medicine. I don't know if maybe his medicine is starting to lose it's effectiveness or if it's just a bad spell that he is going through. I happened to run across this web site for a little boy that also suffers from tourettes. I thought I would share the link with you. If you don't really know what it's like for a child to have tourettes, you can go to the link on Jaylen's page that says videos. This is a lot like what Sam is going through. He has done a punching thing similar to this at times...but right now he is flexing his back backwords and jerking his neck and eyes. Here is the link Jaylen's page.

Unless you've been through this yourself, it's very hard to grasp what it's like. So, again...please remember Zachary and Sam (and Jaylen) in your prayers.

I do hope all my dear friends are doing well...Life has been kind of busy and crazy around here. Mark has been offered a job opportunity. The pay isn't huge....but, with him working at night and not having anything to do during the day...it will be a big help. Hopefully he will get the job. It is another custodial job...but as jobs are rather hard to come by right now...we just hope and pray that God will provide :)

You are all in my thoughts and prayers...

With Love, Jerelene