It seems that everywhere I looked today, there were signs of creatures at the garden multiplying. Whether it was the two large turtles on the turtle raft instead of the usual one, or the mating of all sorts of insects, or the explosion of young critters around the garden, it was all wonderful!

It started at the pond where the two muskrats of yesterday morphed into three today! I had my suspicions about the two yesterday, from what little I could see, they looked very young, but today I saw three together and, briefly, in the open, and at least a couple of them were youngsters. Pretty neat!

Then I looked at the turtle raft and lo and behold, there were two painted turtles on it. Up to now, I've seen only the very large one using it. The second one today was a fair size, bigger than the little one I've seen at the east end of the pond, but smaller than the big one. It made me think of the tale of the three bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear :-) Even the rabbits are making a return after not seeing many or any for several years. There are a couple of youngsters around, as well as 3 or 4 adults, including two who were hanging out near the Mallow Bank.