I wish you weren't allergic to her. I think she's trying to adopt you, not just visit you.

Tiny.

A little white tailless cat I call "Buster" comes to visit occasionally. He lives down the street and likes to roam around in the wooded area behind my house and hang out on my stone patio. I don't feed him, and he is a bit skittish, but he will tolerate limited petting and likes to rub against my hand. One time, he jumped up in my lap and then promptly bit me. I'm not sure what was up with that.

There's a Siamese-type cat that likes to hang out in the flower box at our front window. I call him Romeo and have this elaborate story worked up where he is trying to seduce Oliver. (Oliver is the one who pays attention to him, the other cats couldn't care less, apparently.)

There are a few stray and semi-stray cats in the neighborhood who stop by to say hello when we're outside.

A fox visits regularly. He and Lucy seem to like each other. If she's asleep on her beanbag when he comes up to the window, he'll tap on it with his paw to wake her.

This beautiful cat is also a regular visitor. Lucy hates her.

Now that I live in Florida I have a family of Anole lizards that like my back window. They keep trying to come in the back door when I open it. Actually I'd let them. They eat bugs. But the wife will not accept this. Then she screams when the ants invade.

Several. There's a small warren of rabbits (OMG!) that live under the deck, which is fine. They don't seem to be hurting anything. The biggest nuisance about it is that evidently rabbit pellets are like chocolate chips for dogs. Can *not* resist. A tad yuck, but it's not going to hurt her.

There's also, recently, been a juvenile orange tabby cat that I've caught sauntering around the yard recently (when dog isn't out there). He's got a flea collar on, so I assume someone is at least sorta taking care of him. Seems sweet enough, but not terribly affectionate.

But there has been a more recent visitor. Some near neighbors (our yards don't actually align, but it's very close) adopted this kiddo earlier this year (photo from March, so she's grown quite a bit). When she got tall enough, I'd often catch her jumping the fence into the retention pond (our common border) and hanging out. At first, I'd hop our part of the fence and carry her back to deposit in their yard. Then, we got cool with me just telling her to go home and she would (which was really cool....she looks very lithe and regal bounding the fence). Then she and Coya became friends and she'd hop the fence to come over and play with her through the fence (like so, running back and forth and whimpering at each other, etc.

Well, evidently earlier this week, Charley decided to say screw it and hopped our fence too to come play with Coya in earnest (I wasn't home, I just heard about it). I guess they just kind of chased each other around and it was all fun and games. It doesn't really bother me (Coya's not likely to lash out at another dog unless provoked (but then...it's kind of an Oh Shit situation), and Charley's awfully sweet, but I'd really prefer it not become a very regular (unsupervised) thing. But I'm overprotective like that with my girl.

The local outdoor cats love to nap on the covered hot tub out back.

My buddy Marley, who I've mentioned before, comes by the house regularly.

Marley is 10 years old and is as frisky as a kitten. He's a gray tortoise-shell with white socks. He's also VERY vocal and tells me what to do and when. I spend an inordinate amount of time opening the closets and cupboards for him so he can look for critters. He likes to sit on the fridge and stare at me, sometimes for an hour at a time, and then he just leaves. I am his bitch.

He can regularly be found on the roof, laying like a pampered king, watching the birds in the bushes like it was Food TV. In the summer when it's sunny, I join him there.

He is quite the mouser and often leaves rats, mice , and birds at my door. Often in halves and quarters. More then once, he's brought live rats into the house, I guess as a gift to me. He was able to do this 'cause he was able to open the screen door before I fixed it.

He lives next door but, truth be told, I'm pretty sure he prefers my place to his. He regularly greets me by running from their front door, unable to get in. This makes me very angry because it is frikkin cold out these days and they think the garage over night is good enough for him.

In the last week I've noticed that when he comes to my door at night, he is still warm despite how cold it is out. I am now fairly sure he begs to get out of his house just to come directly over to mine to sleep the night under my overs. He loves snuggling up to me under the blankets where it's warm. He loves doing this by planting himself in the center of the bed. I willingly accommodate him.

I absolutely adore Marley as I do all the neighborhood pets that come to my door for scritches and cookies. I am the luckiest guy in town.

Oops, here's Marley.

Senyar, I loooove the fox and your kitty (it could be a kid's book -- "Lucy and the Fox"). What a nice stone patio, too.

Our 80-year-old Greek landlady feeds a couple neighborhood strays, including a one-eyed jet black kitty that's lithe and quick. Our landlady's son, a hardened Queens guy in his fifties, said of the cat, "He's had a tough life."

Yeah, all sorts of critters visit us. Cane toads hang around outside the living room sliding doors at night because the lights attract the bugs, which they then feast on. They also like to sit under the bug zapper for the same reason. We know there are a few snakes around, but we've only had one visitor inside (an Eastern Brown) - quickly removed by the local snake catcher. There is a family of deer that pass through the back yard almost every day, although we hardly ever see them. A heron lives here and often sits on the patio in the early mornings. There are several generations of what the kids call 'Pookakas' that have been born on and live round our dam. I think they're Dusky Moorhens. There are lots of hares living around here, but we usually only see them when driving in and out at night.

There's a huge red-tailed hawk in the neighborhood. She's usually on the power line at the entrance to the subdivision (I always say hello to her when I drive past), but every now and then she'll show up nearer. One morning she was on the back of a chair on the patio, another day she was on the driveway when I opened the front door. She took off immediately, which was pretty spectacular.

We have a skunk called Mr. Busy.

I'm sure I have at least one of the neighbourhood white-tailed jackrabbits living under my big spruce tree out front. No recent sightings, but plenty of tracks around. I pile the snow from the driveway onto the north side of the base of the tree to provide a little extra shelter on these cold nights (the house, garage, and hedge seem to serve as a decent enough windbreak around the other sides).

Heee! Tiny came back by tonight and I let her inside and we got on a G+ hangout with some friends.

Stewriffic, that's just so whimsical and awesome!