Raising sons in Arizona, this was our front yard: de facto home to a neighborhood’s worth of children / kids / teens, as well as the scene of countless sword/light-saber duels, squirt-gun fights, impromptu nature laboratories, homemade brownie & lemonade stands, garage sales, hardcore skateboarding, dress-up / theater / 8mm movie productions, yard-wide chalk drawings, Konrad and Ben’s famous BeanCo™ bean-pod pick-up service … as well as exciting encounters with surprised-looking roadrunners and birds of all feathers, packs of brazen javelinas /coyotes, unseen bobcats, metallic-sounding hummingbird dog-fights overhead (and their super-tiny nests), tarantula dens, [evil] tarantula hawks (huge wasps with orange-red wings), fluorescing bark scorpions,  and population explosions of young praying mantises / walking-sticks, exotic geckos and colorful lizards of all types (including Gila monsters),  bullsnakes / kingsnakes / rattlesnakes (and many other snake species — yes, I caught /relocated the rattlers) — even swarms of killer (Africanized) bees … and last but not least, my ‘famous’ Halloween puppets!