You may already know this and didn't do this but don't put dog food outside, it can entice all kinds of critters. When we lived in a subdivision in Allen there were Bobcats and Coyotes that were mingling in the yards. We watch our little dogs whenever they go out because now we live in the "country" and who knows what kind of creatures are out there. I don't even want to say what I've found in my garage so far. A brown lizard and a spider that was the size of a VW. Wasps are numerous and aggressive. I guess Anna is Animal Kingdom?

Familiarize yourself with black widow spiders. We found one in our garage the first year we were here. 

did we move from Allen to the Amazon? DFW to the jungle? I have never seen so many wasps since I visited New Jersey.

I haven't seen any of those human sized wasps or spiders yet, lucky me!
I've only seen the ones that are about an inch in size!

Quote from: OakHollowResident#1 on September 05, 2010, 09:19:31 PM

I haven't seen any of those human sized wasps or spiders yet, lucky me!
I've only seen the ones that are about an inch in size!

They look a little bigger when you  think they're going to sting your face.

Six or seven times.

And I'm not an adrenaline junkie - I swear!

Never fear...

Learn what a black widow spider web looks like. They look like cobwebs. We have them around our front & back doors, grills and side gate. We even found one inside our house on the back of our trash can once. We have seen copperheads, possum, armadillos, rabbits, squirrels, heard packs of coyotes at night, bobcats, brown recluse spiders, black widow spiders, trantulas and rat snakes. We found two brown recluse spiders in our closet. Learn what those look like too.

I had a huge spider problem when I first moved in, but those little electric things you plug into your outlets pretty much took care of that.  I gathered up enough courage to walk outside and get a picture of a cicada killer wasp on our tree.  It turns out that the oak in our front yard was the neighborhood hangout for wasps and was normally COVERED with the little demons.  Big Brother to the rescue!

It is suposed to be harmless, blah blah blah.  I know all of this, but what I see is a wasp big enough to kill me.     I have a pic of it, if I can figure out how to post it, but it is nowhere near the quality of those horror pics E posted.

So far, the only mammals I have seen are field mice, and a family of rabbits that live in my backyard (where I refuse to mow).