Re: I could probably pet one!!

Hi Kathy,
I never actually SAW any of those critters when I lived in Michigan (19 years!). They were things I found just in books. (No, I didn't get out much.)
When I moved to TX, I saw plenty of those critters. Most were flat (like, say, roadkill). But they were all down there in TX! Skunks would nest under people's houses if they could. There were some pretty fragrant apartments there.
Here in AZ, I know there's skunk. Ain't seen one yet, but I smell them around once in a while. They were after the kitty food here, too. But I've known the cats to bring in geccos and lizards. I've had a couple of tarantulas come up out of the shower drain. (I still run the shower hot for a few minutes before I get in, and pour some cleaning chemical down the drain first.) I've had many more black widow spiders around my house in Phoenix than you'd ever see in a dozen zoos! Only a few scorpions. Want to bet we have killed around 300 black widows! Did you know that baby black widows are cute little white spiders? Did you know that wasp spray works better than spider spray on them, and you can spray them from a greater distance, too?
But we also have a great variety of hummingbirds, and there's jackrabbits and roadrunners and quail and deer that we sometimes see at the roadsides. One bright day a roadrunner came into my yard and just sat in the sun. Yes, they do have those dull brown feathers. However, when the sun hit him just right, this roadrunner had purples, blues, and whatever, and looked a lot like the colorful guy in the cartoons. I was too stunned to take notes...or pictures. It was just too gorgeous for words.
Sorry to ramble on so. It's past my bedtime and I've been surfing all over the net. Naughty me! But I'm so tired I almost feel crosseyed.