Outside of birds, cats, and fish, many other animals come to visit Duncodin Cottage. Some of them are welcome and some of them are not.

Lizzie the lizard lives under an Arizona flagstone. We find her on the the grill one day. Luckily we haven't turned on the gas yet. There is a hole in the ground and every morning David looks into it. One day he sees a pair of eyes looking back at him. It's Friedrich, the toad. We named him Friedrich because we thought he was a frog. But he has been positively identified as a western toad. We suppose it's OK for a toad to be named Friedrich. He is the one portrayed in the backsplash. We don't have names for the butterflies, the dragonflies, the ladybugs ,the bees, the grasshoppers, and other insects but we are very thankful that they visit our garden.

Squirrels are not welcome. They are very wasteful. They like to sample fruits. They just take a few bites out of a number of fruits and then leave them on the ground. Raccoons are the other unwelcome visitors. They always leave a big mess in the pond. All the stones are misplaced; pots are turned on their side; and some plants like the fiber optic grass get flattened. It seems they used it for their cushion to watch the moon.

We have seen an opossum a few times. He has the ugliest tail but his white coat is quite pretty. The folks at the animal shelter told us opossums are harmless. We hope they find food in our garden. At times, we have smelled a skunk but we have never seen one.