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Snail eradication (day 19).

By jstemwedel on May 27, 2009.

This morning, like yesterday morning, was sunny and dewy, and just a little bit chilly.

Good snailing weather.

Actually, though, given recent gastropod ratios during my morning forays, it might be more accurate to call it slugging rather than snailing. Except that slugging already has a meaning.

Anyway, in the 30 minutes I had to clear gastropods from the back yard, I formed the impressing that slightly damp blades of grass on even a very small lawn can host indefinitely many slugs. Some of those blades of grass had two or three slugs each.

I'm pretty ambivalent about lawns. I suppose it's nice to have a patch of grass on which the sprogs can practice their soccer moves, but I don't worry that gastropods will eat it. However, if they're using it as a base from which to launch attacks of my strawberries, then I have to go after them.

Having a couple hens to eat slugs off the lawn each morning might be nice, though. (But I doubt I could teach them to keep the count, or to communicate the count to me if they kept it.)

There were only a couple high-altitude snails today. Unless they're at a higher altitude than I'm looking. I'm not yet ready to use the fruit-picker for snail-picking.

Today's take: 168 slugs and 29 snails.

Tags
critters
environment
garden
personal

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