Animals in Arkansas

We returned last night from a week-long stay with my parents.  I took hundreds of pictures - even after I deleted a bunch of duplicates and goofs.  So I decided to tackle this thematically.  I guess being spring, we saw lots of animals everywhere we went...and we took pictures of almost all of them!

The first day we found two box turtles crossing the road. 

This was the bigger one, it was covered in yellow dots.

The mockingbirds were extremely busy building nests - one of the overachieving pairs had already built and filled one in a bush.

Caleb and the first fat catfish he caught:

My parents have 3 dogs - two of them are brothers - this is Tuck:

Annalise spotted this bat snoozing at the Historic Arkansas museum in Little Rock.

Everyone on the tour took a picture!  Star of the Show!

Not living animals, but there are giant robotic praying mantises in front of the Clinton Presidential Library.

The Dallas County Museum has this stuffed polar bear of display.  Obviously not from Arkansas, but someone local had shot it at some distant time in the past.

Tuck's brother is Nip:

A tarantula at Logoly State Park - I had no idea tarantulas lived in Arkansas.

I thought this moth was a leaf at first!

Annalise thought this moth was a leaf at first:

(This is what is looks like closed and next to a real leaf.)

Natalie found and carried a crippled butterfly during our hike.

My parents other dog is Stella who is bushy like a bear.  She's a sweet old girl though.

A large mouth bass Caleb caught:

Natalie and some cows out standing in their field.

And last but not least (and actually not in Arkansas) - We got to meet, love on, and feed Molly the Pony.  I pulled a random book from the shelf of leveled readers at our local library and saw a pony on the front - I did notice that she had a prosthetic leg, but as we read her story and learned more, I realized we would be going right by her home and arranged to go and meet her.  We were all a little star struck :)