This picture has not been Photoshopped—what you see really is a 4.25" tan-and-black striped slug gloopity-glopping across my front porch. It was about half an inch thick in the middle, and was so heavy/gross/suctioned to the boards that I couldn't move it off the porch with a stick as I do with most slugs.
Poor cross-eyed Davy (aka Hook), who's never been the sharpest tool in the shed, came up to eat and laid his fat belly across the slug, who then turned antennae toward Hook's fur as if to ask, "Hmm, is this something good to eat?" I then screamed, grabbed Hook, and ran back into the house. The slug went on about its business and slurped toward the cat fuel in the dish. BLEH!
This is one of those jumbo slugs that not even the chickens will touch. Believe me, I've tried and been refused. Myrtle Mae would just give me the poultry side eye—first one creepy dinosaur eye, then turning the head to glare with the other creepy dinosaur eye—and walk off, clucking under her breath. My current flock does the same.
Smaller slugs are delicious, and small enough so the chickens can eat them one at a time, like bonbons. Big ones take too much effort, and seem to taste bad. I watch Henrietta and Ida B. Workin pick them up in their beaks, shake their heads back and forth, then let Dr. Sluggenstein's Monster fall to the ground (similar to how humans spit out something that tastes nasty).
Which is more EEEEEUUUWWWW-invoking: grading 120 final essays, or this horrifying slug? Hmm...it's a draw. Although if I had to choose which one I'd rather be locked in a jail cell with, I'd say the essays. At least they can't gloopity-glop over to my side of the cell and leave slime trails all over my bunk. If you poke an essay, it just sits there. If you get hungry enough, you can eat essays; if you get cold enough, you can snuggle up in a pile of them to keep warm, or even start a fire with them. Slugs? Not so much. So I'll take essays over slugs, even though the essays are a huge pain. And they'll be done and returned to students as of 12:00 noon on Monday, December 12. Yes!
My sister, founding president of Slug Haters International, will have something to say about this. She and slugs go way back.
11 comments:
Wow; I thought I had a slug problem. During the summer, I kill them with beer. I put out a pie pan of cheap beer before I go to bed and they happily drown in the stuff. See this blog for my inspiration: http://www.thisgardenisillegal.com/2006/07/how-to-kill-slimy-bastards-aka-slugs.html
Oh, the slime! Yuck! I don't think that I've seen one that big! :shivers:
Goddamn. You should have set fire to your fucking house to get rid of that godforsaken thing. I thought you had a pistol around the HKC--how did you not use it on that slimy anaconda-sized creature that God and evolution forgot? If the chickens won't eat them, what good can they be in the circle of life?
This looks like something we have in Oz that I've always called a 'leopard slug'(do the markings give it away?).
I've always thought (despite their looks) they are better than snails because they only eat the fallen leaf litter and not the new green shoots of the plants, but I have also noticed they have a predilection for pet food so I never leave bowls out o'nite.
Harmless enough, just too ugly for words.
Karen C
Ewwwww. Gross! When you get slugs in the garden here, you're supposed to put out a tin of beer at night and they will drown themselves. I suppose they drown happy. :-)
Yes, I can vouch for cheap beer as a bait for slugs. I slightly bury a pie pan in the flowerbed mulch and fill the pan about 2/3 full of cheap beer. The slugs love it! They crawl in, get drunk and then drown.
Yuck is right! We have big ones like that out here too---ugly suckers.
LOL! These comments are great! :-)
MHP's comment is hilarious!
If you don't want to waste your cheap beer, you can also drop a little salt on them. Dries 'em up, sorta, beyond the ability to sustain life.
I think I'm gonna start a rumor that there's a part of the country where slug-wrestling is a common activity. Judging from the comments here, that idea is just sensational enough to catch on!
Miss Kitty, I think you and your sister would love David Greenberg and Victoria Chess's children's book, *Slugs.* Seriously. http://tinyurl.com/7yy6xaf
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