Cazadera

A friend of mine once discovered that her house had mice. She didn't put out traps or buy poison; she and her boyfriend gave the mouse a name, Scuttlebutt. (Only one of many reasons why she's cool.) While I was out of town Vivani stayed with my friend, and promptly killed Scuttlebutt.

She's up to her old tricks again. Vivani brought a dead chickadee into the house several weeks ago (we had a funeral) and last week she brought a sparrow inside. This one wasn't quite dead, though it died shortly after I took it from the cat. (We had another backyard funeral, this one poorly attended.)

She's enormously pleased with herself.

In poultry news, the ducks are getting bigger but still not laying. I have been experimenting with their feeding; nothing too radical, mostly fun food. They had aquatic salad bar—torn-up greens floating in their cat-pan pool—which they quite enjoyed. Today for dinner they got snail island, which begins like aquatic salad bar with a cat pan of clean water. Add a large stone for an island. Populate the island with several handsful of snails collected from the front-yard landscaping. Enjoy.

Since it's a dessert, maybe I should call it ile escargot. Making it a flambe would be rad, but I don't think the ducks would enjoy that; too bad.