The Raven's Roost

Since we live out in the woods, quite literally, sometimes we get four-footed friends coming around. Typically we see mice, especially in the winter, and it's not like the house is dirty or cluttered, it's just that they're abundant out here. I encourage snakes to stay around outside, like the hognose, who is a mouse eater, and any that get inside quickly attract the attention of the cats and soon have reason to regret their choices. (Crowley and Feisal actually cooperate when hunting, it's pretty cool.) Anyway, sometimes the mice don't come all the way in the house, they just get into the crawl space under the house looking for a way in and start gnawing on stuff. Usually it's the floor boards around where pipes come up. Sometimes it's just ... whatever the hell they're gnawing on under there. And the sound is amplified, so it's really loud and annoying.

Like last night when one started chewing on something underneath the AC shaft/my bedroom and would. not. stop. You can see by the sleep monitor on my Fitbit how long this shit went on. Eventually I got up to start doing my morning stuff and found they woke up Fox, too, who was crouching in the hall, with all three cats, listening to the CROMCHCROMCHCROMCHCROMCHCROMCH. So we took the drastic step of laying out poison bait under the house.

I don't really like doing this, I'd rather let organic (scaley, feathery, or furry) methods handle the mouse population, but I can't handle the chewing. It also makes me anxious because when I lived in the old house in Kentucky, I had Old House Wiring. The place was built in the 1910's or 20s and had that old fabric-wrapped wiring in the attic, still. And one day to my dismay I found that chipmunks were nesting up there and gnawing on the wires, setting us all up for a fire. That was when I really became sold on the "organic pest control" method after a cat I adopted started bringing me gnawed-off chipmunk heads and, for ~some reason~ the wire chewing stopped. Hmm.

So whenever mice start their bullshit here I start worrying about wiring or weakening floor boards, or any number of other stupid things they might do. I mean, it's also Florida, you're going to have pests. Having lived in sub-tropical and tropical places for a good portion of my life now I've more or less come to terms with the idea that I am going to find bugs in the house, and it's just that they live here.

Anyway, tonight I up my pizza game again. Recently I started using malt powder in my crusts and I like the improved texture and flavor. We just bought a Lodge cast iron pizza steel - like a pizza stone but it doesn't require an hour of heating up before you use it. I've been cooking pizzas in a cast iron skillet for several months now and we like it, but the larger, mostly flat surface of this item should allow me to easily use a peel to get the pizzas in and out, and if I shape them into more of an oblong than a circle, I might get two in at once.

At some point I will probably be able to talk Fox into building an outdoor, wood fired pizza oven, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

I'm going with a fairly simple pie tonight, similar to the marinara pizza, but I bought a package of Violife feta to slice over it. A scattering of mushrooms and onions and that'll do 'er.

There's a hummingbird feeder on the back deck that one particular pair seems to have claimed as their own. There does seem to be a difference in traffic between it and the two feeders in the front yard. Fox can watch this feeder while he's working in the rec room and while he was on a call, two males started fighting in midair and one slammed into the sliding glass door.


This little goober knocked himself out. Once he could stand up he started getting his wits back and I took a few pictures before he flew off - which he did, having fully recovered.



"Helllllloooooo ladies, check out my SHINY red neck feathers! Aren't you impressed with how pretty I am? Yeeahhhhh boy."
Last time this happened it was a sparrow hitting the front door, but I can't find the picture of that one.