A Short Hiatus

I'll need to ease up on blogging until next week. I'm tenting my home for termites.

For those who don't know, tenting is a process where an exterminator covers your home with a large heavy tent, the fumagation tent usually resembles a circus tent in that it has red and yellow or red and white stripes or some variation of primary colors. But unlike a bigtop circus, it's not a happy place inside.

The exterminator fumigates the home under the canopy for about 24 hours, thereby destroying all and anything living inside.
In my case, we have termites, and yes we're leaving.

But we also have palmetto bugs. Palmetto Bugs are a nasty creature that resembles a cockroach, but it is much bigger, about 2 inches. It fly’s toward you when you try to kill it, meanwhile making a loud ominous flapping noise. Oh yeah, and they bite too.
But we live in Florida, and in Florida everyone has Palmetto bugs.

We own a Craftsman Period bungalow; it's sits on a brick foundation and is therefore elevated by about two feet. The foundation has many openings for air flow, the home was built over 75 years ago when central air was not standard, so naturally we have all sorts of critters living under our house, mostly fruit rats and king snakes, and they’ll be killed too.


Nearly every home owner in Florida has fruit rats. They're called rats, but really they are more like large mice. Fruit rats are attracted to fruit trees. Many Florida neighborhoods are a cornucopia of fruit tress and other tropicals.

Unfortunately tenting is just one of the many hidden costs that we pay to live in Florida.
But it’s worth it.

OR

Maybe I should just get a Pangolin.

Pangolins - large-tongued tanks Digging for ants and termites with their strong claws and large tongue, the pangolins have little to fear, except humans. They can curl up into a ball and their razor sharp claws provide extra defense.