kitchen update
there's a three foot mouse hole going from my bedroom to the front porch. pretty neat huh? it all started a long time ago when a hole appeared in the stucco at the end of the gutter over the front porch. when it rained hard enough water would get in and rot the wood. it doesn't rain here very much so i'm sure this took a while. the extra moisture in the ground attracted subterranean termites who where happy to eat the remaining wood. terminix noticed and killed the termites. a few summers ago some bees decided this hole would be a really nice place to live. all that chewing and spitting and fanning in the wall made so much noise it kept us brand new parents awake all night. terminix wouldn't kill them cause they're endangered. but we couldn't have hostile armed insects swarming around our front door. so i sat on the front porch for a week spraying every one i saw. eventually, they left. we knew the wood was damaged because we noticed the lack of 2x4's when we replaced the ugly bricks in front of the house with pretty stones. now we have the attention of a pretty good contractor so it seems like a good time to fix all that. the ripple effect. we were disappointed there was no honey left in the hive.