So the one thing they don't tell you about moving to the bucolic splendors of Gloucester is that there are lots of bugs.

Big ones.

Actually, I've been having a fun time looking at them all and trying to figure out what they are. There's things here that defy classification - or at least I haven't been arsed to look them up in a bug book.

We have bugs that look like small dinosaurs, bugs that look like Faberge creations and bugs that create some of the most interesting little homes you can imagine. We have cicadas in the trees that regularly launch themselves at my head, little headbanging beetles that randomly skip across my newspaper, and a shy but humongous funnel spider (not the kind from Australia - I already had that moment of fear - the 'oh crap! that thing came to Gloucester from Australia on a boat and is living on the side of my house and will probably sneak into the house in the middle of the night and when I least expect it it will organize all the clowns that live in the walls and they will suck my brains out....." but that only lasted for a minute or two...).

We have wildlife as well. There's a small skunk that lives under the shed, frenchfry birds nesting on our front porch (you know, the kind you see begging for food at McDonalds?) and a trio of hummingbirds with entitlement issues.

Last night we also had some kind of large heron-like creature land in our pear tree, looking totally out of sorts and rather embarrassed at the hummingbirds that were trying to intimidate it out of their tree. It finally left out of sheer humiliation.

So there's always something different to see - and as long as they don't come into the house and organize the clowns in the walls into an invading horde, we should be fine.