Apparently the local wildlife can sense that this house is about to be uninhabited and are eager to take over, because we have been discovering increasingly larger critters in here. The carpenter ants are long-time residents, but lately we’ve had more & weirder bugs, culminating in the earwig I found under my pillow. (note: earwigs do not belong under my pillow!) Then we discovered a bold little mouse living in our kitchen. Most recently, my housemate found a snake in her wall (it had gotten stuck to some plastic covering a hole). If only we could direct the snake to the mouse! Anyway, it’s a good thing we’re leaving soon, because clearly this process will end in coyote, bear, and moose roaming the house.

Today I noticed a spider drop down from my desk to the floor. Fine enough, but then a little later I suddenly noticed it on my keyboard, which I was using. I don’t know how it got there without me seeing it, but when I tried to shoo it off, it crawled under the keys! That’s a bad place for spiders! They could easily be killed by my typing, which night also break my keyboard, making all of us unhappy. I switched to the keyboard on my computer (I normally use an external one at home), and eventually the spider came out and I shooed it onto the floor.