A wild life with local wildlife

The joys of country living! Since we've lived in the new house, I have seen, in the wild, Javelinas, gophers, quail, roadrunners, gophers, jackrabbits, and something that was too small to be a rat and to big to be a mouse that crawled out of a flooded gopher hole. We also have toads hopping all over after dark, and apparently we will be seeing pheasant soon. We have the little cottontail bunnies here too, but I haven't seen them in the yard yet. I like seeing the rabbits, and as long as they stay out of my garden, which the previous resident thoughtfully closed in with about 2 feet of fencing under ground level, we will get along fine.
The wild pigs were a surprise. We were driving out and one was standing by the roadside while his cohorts ate a neighbor's flowers. Of course we saw them after the hype about the swine flu hit, not that I think they carry it or anything. It was just very funny timing that we see them while the world is hysterical about getting the flu from pigs.
I planted my garden last week, in pots for now, to be moved to the garden patch when they are big enough. I planted corn, zucchini peppers, pickle cucumbers, regular cucumbers, watermelon, tomatoes, pumpkins, and radishes. I think the kids will have fun with the pumpkins.
The fruit trees are doing okay, despite the fact the gophers are trying to eat the roots. I'm trying to get rid of them, but it's not easy. Ran a hose down a gopher hole to try flooding them out and was surprised when whatever it was crawled out...it wasn't a gopher. My youngest came out and was looking at it, when her dog ran over, grabbed it and took off. I think they heard her screaming in Phoenix. I told her to go get her dad, (I knew he couldn't do anything but at least she wasn't screaming at me) and the dog took off every time I went after him. (I may not like rodents, but that's a horrible way to go and I don't want the dog to get sick) After a while Shortie calmed down and asked me to flood another gopher hole. Go figure. I don't think I'll be doing that again, but I want to knock down the gopher population. I don't like the holes in my yard or that the dogs think of them as snacks. That's just too gross for me.