The cats have been really interested in the pantry this week. Of course they are always interested in any space that is normally on the other side of a closed door but this was a little different: they spent all of breakfast time on Wednesday crouched in front of the door staring at it. We just thought it was funny until I went to check on my tomatoes* and found this. Nibble, nibble.

Rob pulled everything out of the bottom of the pantry while the cats crawled around smelling it all and I peered over his shoulder hoping he'd find something and that I wouldn't see it. My anxiety was wasted however, since there was nothing to find. No mouse, no droppings, no holes in the walls large enough for a very small rodent to fit through.

This leaves me wondering exactly what happened: Is there a hole we somehow missed? Did a mouse get into and out of the pantry under the door without, somehow, leaving enough of a scent trail to interest the cats? Did Ollie - the cat who explores with her mouth and has eaten everything from pizza crust to handknits - crawl all the way over the box of tomatoes and take a big bite out of a small one in the back corner? Could my cat actually eat that much tomato without getting sick? Is there something else in our house that could chomp into a tomato like that? (and more disturbingly) where could it be hiding?

So far the rest of the rest of the tomatoes are looking fine. Maybe whatever it was is gone.

*I picked all the tomatoes a couple of weeks ago when it looked like we were going to drop down to zero over night. It turned out we didn't and the last two weeks have been relatively warm and mostly sunny so I could have left them on the vine but I wasn't going to risk it. They'll ripen pretty well in a box in the pantry.

We had a visitor in our back yard last week. We've seen him around the neighbourhood a few times, mostly playing with the outdoor toys of the dog that lives across the street. He ran away just after I took this picture and I felt a little bad about scaring him off when he'd just settled into a nice cozy spot in the sun but I don't really want a fox feeling that comfortable in my yard and there are plenty of wild places nearby where he'd be just as happy.

Sometimes it actually happens.