BarbaraRose wrote:The only thing I have ever put outside is Diatomaceous Earth (food grade) to get rid of ants and fleas. Maybe one of my neighbors put something out. I especially miss the lizards.
Good for you!
My neighbors, on both sides of me, have the exterminator come about once per month. They do a lot of spraying under the eaves, and the smell (and, without doubt, some of the spray) wafts into my back yard. I absolutely hate it, but there is not much I can do. The houses here are pretty close together.
This is why I mostly keep my dog inside when I am not home. I never know when the exterminator might show up.
I'm like you, I really like seeing the lizards. Very interesting creatures, I think. I have never seen a lizard here at my house since I moved from the foothills to the valley.
One time, when my daughter was about three or four years old (still lived in the foothills then) my daughter was playing out in front of our house, a short distance away from where I was sitting an pulling weeds. Suddenly she began to shriek, running in small circles, waving her hands all around: "Mommy! Mommy!!! MOMMY!!!
Of course, I immediately jumped to my feet and raced the short distance to where she seemed to be having some kind of meltdown. I was a bit frightened, really, at what she could be reacting to.
"Oh! MOMMY!!! It's an 'izzard!!!" And, sure enough, there it was, a large alligator lizard, partially hidden and unmoving, in the leaf litter just a few feet away. (If this sounds amusing, it actually was. However, as a Mom, I was very careful not to even smile - for her it was a very serious issue).
Alligator lizard (these handsome guys can be up to a foot long, nose to tail):
http://www.californiaherps.com/lizards/pages/e.m.multicarinata.html
I explained to her about the wonderfulness of lizards (and I do think they are wonderful!) and she soon calmed down.
Barbie, I do sincerely feel for you. When I first moved to the Sierra foothills from Southern California nearly forty years ago now, the two things that most impressed me were the sheer number (and different species) of birds, and how blue the sky always was. I had never seen anything like it.
Forty years later the number, and species, of birds one would see has drastically reduced, and lizard sightings very few and far between indeed.
Interestingly, this reduction also has seemed to coincide with the introduction, and then wide use by homeowners, and by farmers in my agricultural area, of the herbicide Round Up.
Again, sorry for the loss of your wild friends.
Anne
