environment
jstemwedel | May 22, 2009This morning was relatively warm and fairly dry.
If you've been following the details of my campaign to control the back yard gastropod population, you know what that means:
Hardly any gastropods were out to be picked.
On the plus side, this means I was able to get another day out of the SBMD I prepared three mornings ago. But it also means that the slimy hoards are hunkered down somewhere, out of my clutches, waiting until the conditions are right for them to slither out of hiding and munch on my plants.
I'll grant, though, that the slithering will probably be relatively slow. Perhaps I'll…
jstemwedel | May 21, 2009Another cool, dewy morning today as I went out to pick gastropods. The wet grass brushing against my bare legs got at least some of that moisture from the slugs stretched along the blades.
Tomorrow morning I'm going to remember to put on jeans before I go out snailing.
There was still room in the Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance that I used yesterday and the day before. As a method of gastropod dispatch, the SBMD seems to be a lot less resource-intensive than the bucket o' salt, not to mention less slimy. Plus, since I'm pouring out the water and drowned gastropods onto the compost…
jstemwedel | May 20, 2009It didn't end up raining yesterday (so I didn't get a chance to test my dedication to snailing by snailing in the rain). Today dawned cold and dewy.
Which meant I knew I was going to get some gastropod action.
And indeed, I did. There were slugs aplenty on the moist leaves and blades of grass. Owing to the cold (which my fingers don't especially care for), I lost a few of them that leapt back to the earthy depths, but a good many found their way to the Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance (the same one I prepared yesterday, when the pickings were slim).
Today, there were a bunch of mid-…
jstemwedel | May 19, 2009This morning was cool, overcast, and very dry. There was no discernible dew on the grass.
In other words, not conditions in which the gastropods come out to play.
Having some experience of this kind of weather earlier in the snail eradication campaign, I went right for the well-insulated hiding places: the bases of plants that provide a lot of shade, the sides of the raised beds, the sides of the compost bin.
Nothing.
Finally, I ended up scraping the bottom of the barrel (actually, the bottom of a watering can) and found a few wee slugs. I managed to find some more slugs and a couple of…
jstemwedel | May 18, 2009This was another cool, dewy morning following on the heels of a blazing hot day.
In other words, good snailing weather.
I got started a little earlier than usual, because I had to empty yesterday's Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance onto the compost pile and prepare a fresh Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance. I was a little disconcerted at the bodily integrity of the slugs in the bucket -- perhaps it's a side effect of watching too many horror movies, but I have this tiny irrational fear that, since they're not melted, they might come back.
Reason enough to turn the compost pile and make…
sciencewoman | May 17, 2009One my friends lives outside of Anchorage, Alaska and recently had a black bear pay a visit to her backyard. Now her preschoolers are obsessed with bears.
Minnow too has a bit of a bear obsession at the moment, though she hasn't seen any bears in their natural habitat. At school, she's been reading "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" and at home one of her favorite books is the "Berenstain Bear's Big Honey Hunt." Saturday morning, Minnow announced that we were going on a bear hunt, or maybe that we were going to look for bees that would, presumably, lead us to bears. We made it all the way to the…
grrlscientist | May 17, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
jstemwedel | May 17, 2009Yesterday was a super-hot day, and this morning was cool and dewy. Later, though, we're expecting temperatures higher than yesterday's.
So the gastropods were out enjoying the break in the heat while it lasted.
On the plus side, many of them will not have to suffer through today's heat. I brought them to my Soapy Bucket of Merciful Deliverance. (Thanks to Heddi for the tip!)
The gastropods in evidence were skewed heavily toward slugs today. My shocking discovery was a climbing rose against the back fence whose blooms closest to the ground were festooned with slugs. At a certain point, I…
jstemwedel | May 16, 2009Well, I think it's safe to say that the slim pickings on days six and seven were related to the low level of dewiness.
This morning: much dewier.
The gastropod population in evidence in the back yard: back in the triple digits.
Still, things seem not as infested as a week ago, when we launched the eradication effort. Most of the snails and slugs I found were a good distance from the vegetable garden, and the strawberries seem largely slug-free. However, I did have to pick a handful of snails out of the apple tree.
Speaking of handfuls, my current record is 46 snails in one hand at a time.…
jstemwedel | May 15, 2009This morning I overslept, so I didn't get out into the yard until 6:15 AM to commence the gastropod picking.
Either someone got to them before me, or there just aren't many left in the parts of the yard I am actively patrolling.
Seriously, there weren't even any slugs on the side of the watering can (which is usually good for at least five slugs and snails on any given morning).
By rummaging around at the bases of some of the bushier plants, I was able to scare up a few slugs -- fairly little ones, too, probably not mature enough to be reproducing.
Like yesterday, this was not a very dewy…
jstemwedel | May 14, 2009This morning's garden foray was weird.
Where were all the gastropods?
In 30 minutes of serious hunting, in past hiding places and what looked like reasonable candidates as auxiliary hiding places, I mostly came up empty. Some possible explanations for this:
I've put a serious dent in the snail and slug population, and they need to do some serious reproducing to replenish their ranks. (I doubt I'm this successful so early in the campaign.)
The snails and slugs that remain are hiding in the far recesses of the yard (like way the heck under the wisteria in the corner). From there, they may…
jstemwedel | May 13, 2009Today, I may have picked slightly more slugs than snails. And, in the process of acquainting myself with the ways of the slug, I discovered a very good reason to perform early-morning gastropod removal as a solo activity:
The tall grass slug trebuchet.
Seriously, if either of the sprogs had been on the receiving end of the (totally accidental) launch, I think the screaming might still be in progress.
Anyway, the slugs seems to like stretching themselves to their full length, helping them look like dew on stems and narrow plant leaves. But when you try to pick them, they rapidly change shape…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2009In the comments of one of my snail eradication posts, Emily asks some important questions:
I'm curious about how exactly you reason the snail-killing out ethically alongside the vegetarianism. Does the fact that there's simply no other workable way to deal with the pests mean the benefits of killing them outweigh the ethical problems? Does the fact that they're molluscs make a big difference? Would you kill mice if they were pests in your house? If you wanted to eat snails, would you? Or maybe the not-wanting-to-kill-animals thing is a relatively small factor in your vegetarianism?
Killing…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2009This morning, it seems like the pickings were somewhat slimmer.
Part of this may have to do with the weekday morning time constraints (30 minute time limit). However, it seems like some regions of the yard that were swarming with gastropods over the weekend had only a few wee snails this morning. (It's possible that there are gastropod hiding places yet to be uncovered. That's a project for Saturday morning.)
The wee snails may also be a sign that I'm making some progress -- the proportion of large snails relative to tiny ones was greatly decreased today. Since snails can't reproduce…
jstemwedel | May 11, 2009Today was the first school day of our snail eradication project. This meant I had to get out to the yard a bit earlier (just after 6 AM), and that I had a fairly limited time to pick slugs and snails before I needed to get inside to propel the sprogs school-ward.
Last night, when I was buying more salt, I noticed that rock salt was significantly cheaper than table salt, so that's the gastropod-melting agent that I'll be using until it runs out. Today, it seemed to do the job (while sounding a lot like gravel as I shook it to make sure the gastropods I had picked stayed picked). We may try…
jstemwedel | May 10, 2009This was another early morning out in the garden picking snails. It was, however, markedly yuckier than yesterday's foray.
First, to those who have recommended alternate strategies for dissuading the gastropods, I've done the copper tape before. It seemed to help a little, but it was far from perfect -- some of the snails seemed not to mind getting a charge out of sliding across the copper. I think we may have a bit of copper tape in the garage. Perhaps I'll put it along the perimeter of our raised beds.
The drowning-in-beer strategy we have tried. Each time, a few slugs and snails have…
grrlscientist | May 10, 2009tags: Birdbooker Report, bird books, animal books, natural history books, ecology books
"How does one distinguish a truly civilized nation from an aggregation of
barbarians? That is easy. A civilized country produces much good bird
literature."
--Edgar Kincaid
The Birdbooker Report is a special weekly report of a wide variety of science, nature and behavior books that currently are, or soon will be available for purchase. This report is written by one of my Seattle birding pals and book collector, Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, and is edited by me and published here for your information and…
jstemwedel | May 9, 2009The most troublesome invasive species in my backyard garden is the snail.
Yesterday morning, when I took out the buckets of shower-warning-up and vegetable-rinsing water to feed to my plants, I was horrified to find snails on my carrots, snails on my chard, snails on my potatoes, snails on my garlic, and especially snails on my tender pea plants.
The strawberries that were starting to get nice and red? Shot through with slugs (which are basically snails without the convenient handles).
On top of our wee little lime tree? Snails copulating.
This is not a situation conducive to effective…
gregladen | May 4, 2009Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves, causing widespread alarm among environmentalists.
A prototype floating nuclear power station being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk is due to be completed next year. Agreement to build a further four was reached between the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the northern Siberian republic of Yakutiya in February.
details
In how many ways is this a bad idea?