critters
jstemwedel | June 5, 2009The morning was dry, but the skies were not overcast, and I think the air temperature was a bit warmer than yesterday morning.
That, plus the two rainfalls earlier this week, seems to have changed things up.
Because today, there were babies.
Most of them were very well hidden -- almost undetectable unless your eye has been trained by twenty-odd days of patrolling for gastropods. But there they were near the base of the rosemary, on the tiny stems of the lemon thyme, on the slender leaves on the society garlic, looking almost like grains of sand or tiny blobs of animal poo: tiny snails and…
jstemwedel | June 5, 2009We're going on three weeks since the first of the Free-Ride silkworms made a cocoon.
So far, there have been no signs of anyone trying to get out. So we'll have to wait a while yet before we witness the miracle of life (or of silkmoths bumping bug uglies, depending on your perspective).
In the meantime, we've heard reports from the field about other silkworms that came home from school.
In one household, while the child with primary responsibility for the silkworms was still trying to secure a supply of mulberry leaves, the silkworms were fed apple leaves. The silkworms did not die.…
jstemwedel | June 4, 2009Unlike Tuesday and Wednesday, today there was no early-morning rainfall.
As such, the slugs and snails decided, apparently, that there was no compelling reason to be out munching on my garden.
There were, however, a good many potato bugs.
So, last night, Uncle Fishy and I were talking about potato bugs (the grayish oblate bugs that roll into balls when they feel threatened). Neither of us does anything about potato bugs in the garden because, as near as we can tell, they don't do any appreciable damage to our plants. (Uncle Fishy's impression was that they only eat dead plant matter --…
jstemwedel | June 3, 2009We had another early-morning downpour (today at about 3 AM).
Thus, the half-hour of gastropod hunting was productive.
The damp weather definitely seemed to make the slugs and snails feel more comfortable being out and about (rather than hunkered down wherever it is they hunker down on the dry mornings). And, like yesterday, the main gastropod action seemed to be on the periphery, where our yard borders with the neighboring yards.
This does make me consider getting enough copper tape, as per JohnV's suggestion, to fortify our border. I just need first to measure how great a length I'll need…
jstemwedel | June 2, 2009"It's never going to rain again." -- Dr. Free-Ride's better half, contemplating cloudy skies over the last month or so
"Oh yeah?" -- The weather in the vicinity of Casa Free-Ride, at approximately 4:45 AM today
It was not a torrential downpour, but there was a good, hard rain for 15 to 20 minutes early this morning, and from the looks of things there might have been a drizzle for some time after that.
You can guess what this did for this morning's gastropod foray.
Strikingly, the serious slug and snail action was not in the garden beds where the initial infestation was so horrific. Rather,…
jstemwedel | June 1, 2009This morning's conditions were more of the same -- overcast and dry.
There were no gastropods in evidence.
Maybe this speaks to the success of our weed-clearing and morning snail- and slug-picking. Maybe there's a pocket of them I haven't located yet, busily breeding and plotting their revenge.
Or maybe the other yards suddenly look more attractive to the gastropods than mine does. Although given the free exchange of birds, squirrels, cats, and ants across property lines, I can't imagine that gastropods would be respectful of such boundaries.
Today's take: no slugs or snails. However, I…
jstemwedel | May 31, 2009Another overcast, cool, and dry morning today.
The pickings were extremely slim. However, it also bears mentioning that the amount of visible gastropod damage to my plants -- especially my food crops -- is greatly reduced since I began my snail eradication campaign less then a month ago.
I'm going to count that as a victory.
The last few weeks has also seen a significant clearing of weeds and tall grass. In part this is because we were trying specifically to reduce slug and snail hiding places. But part of it is just that if you're out every morning poking around in search of gastropods,…
jstemwedel | May 30, 2009This morning was overcast, cool, and dry.
But, as it wasn't a school day, I was determined to get some gastropod action.
This wasn't easy, as the snails and slugs didn't seem to be in any of their reliable hang-outs. Not even a single slug on the watering can.
My strawberries have still been nibbled, so I thought I should have a closer look at their immediate environment. The ground right around the strawberry plants was visibly more moist than the surrounding ground (because I watered the strawberry plants yesterday evening). I got down on my hands and knees and probed the soil just below…
jstemwedel | May 29, 2009This morning was dry and cool and overcast, so the pickings were slim.
I went right to the places where gastropods have been found hiding on mornings like this and came up empty.
Actually, since I cleared some weeds (and some piles of previously whacked weeds and tall grass) yesterday, I figured that maybe there were just fewer hiding places left. It's even possible that when the piles of weeds and tall grass went into the green bin to go to the municipal composting, some slugs and snails went with their hiding places to be composted.
So, despite the lack of snails and slugs to pick, I felt…
jstemwedel | May 28, 2009Another morning, another gastropod foray.
Conditions in the yard were a little odd this morning, owing to the fact that our wee patch of lawn was watered last night. This means that conditions were moist in the vicinity of the lawn but fairly dry otherwise.
Strangely, the lawn itself was not hosting many slugs or snails, unlike yesterday morning. Maybe the amount of water put out by the sprinklers was too much for them. Right on the edges of the lawn area, though, there were plenty of slugs.
So, I could feel that my time was well spent.
In the regions of the yard farther from the wee patch…
jstemwedel | May 27, 2009The happy news and the wistful news concern separate matters, though.
First, the happy news:
Science fair projects were completed well before dinnertime the day before they were due -- and this despite the fact that the Walgreen's photo-printing kiosk was not "while you shop" but "come back in an hour".
The elder Free-Ride offspring (who was required, as were all fourth graders in the school, to submit a project) received a very high grade for the project. The younger Free-Ride project (whose participation, as a second grader, was optional) was awarded the third place ribbon for the grade…
jstemwedel | May 27, 2009This 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…
jstemwedel | May 26, 2009Finally, a morning that dawned clear, cool, and moist.
Tired of being holed up wherever it is they hole up during the dry weather, the gastropods came out to play.
They were not, as it turns out, waiting in the new gastropod shelters we put up Sunday. Instead, they seemed quite content frolicking among our "ground cover" plants -- the lemon thyme, the violets, and the edges of our wee patch of lawn.
It's actually somewhat frustrating, living in the land of perpetual drought (and yeah, I know it's not so much that there's less water than normal as that there are too many people using too much…
jstemwedel | May 25, 2009This morning, once again, was dry and overcast, although not as cold as it has been.
Because I know this is low-yield gastropod-picking weather, I went right to the most likely locations: the bottom of the watering can and the new snail and slug shelters.
Nothing.
I thought about watering near the shelters, going inside for a cup of tea, and coming back out to check for gastropods. But instead, I decided to use the snailing time to clear more weeds, especially from between the raised garden beds.
This means, long pants, long sleeves, and socks notwithstanding, I'm covered with angry welts…
jstemwedel | May 24, 2009Another slow morning for snail picking.
It was cold and dry, so most of the gastropods were probably hunkered down wherever it is they hunker down.
I'm hopeful, however, that after yesterday's significant weed-clearing operation there are fewer slug and snail safe-houses.
While I wasn't picking handfuls of gastropods, I was clearing a few more weeds and setting up some "safe"-houses of my own. The hardware store didn't have unglazed tiles, so we ended up getting unglazed terra cotta saucers to balance on bricks as nice, moist shelters from the sun and wind. At the moment, there are six of…
jstemwedel | May 23, 2009This morning I slept in. But once I woke up, I had to patrol for gastropods.
It was chilly, dry, and overcast. By now, you know what that means: hardly any snails or slugs in evidence. While I was hunting for them, I did some weeding. (After all, the weeds give them shelter without actually being their preferred food source.) Thus, I'm counting the snailing time as productively spent.
Since we need to hit the hardware store today for tomato cages, bamboo U-hoops, and pegboard, I'm adding unglazed tiles and bricks to the list so I can build the gastropod "shelters" Art describes. It…
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 22, 2009The Free-Ride offspring have been using the silkworms as a springboard for discussions of math as well as biology.
We started with 16 silkworms hatched from eggs that came home last June. They were joined, a couple weeks after they hatched, by another 15 silkworms brought home from the science classroom at school.
At this point, a number of those silkworms have taken the plunge and pupated.
Counting cocoons:
As I type these words, there is one silkworm making good initial progress on a cocoon.
There are twenty cocoons that seem to be finished (including one that has two silkworms in it --…
jstemwedel | May 22, 2009You may recall our dispatch last weekend when the largest of the Free-Ride silkworms indicated their readiness to pupate.
They didn't figure it out right away.
Being ready to pupate doesn't mean an instant cocoon:
Actually, it took us a little while to figure out that the tall cylindrical plastic container in which we'd set them up with lots of sticks was not working so well for them. They kept trying to get their silk to stick to the plastic walls, and it just didn't. So we switched over to a shallow rectangular container with paper tubes. That seemed to work better.
Here are some…
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…