Dotty Parker

politics in the garden

I have this thing about slugs.

I hate them.

Slugs freak me out and I don't know why. I don't know why I hate them, but I have no desire to overcome my fear/hatred/shivery grossed outedness as I suspect that I would have to touch them to change my ways.

I am trying, however, to overcome at least some of my disgust in my own, oh-so-clever way. I'm planning on training the slugs to eat only weeds. Maybe they'll leave my irises and hostas alone if I train them to eat the feral morning glories and the dandelions and the musk mallow and the bedding weed.

If they ate those things, then maybe I could love them from afar. I'd have a bit less weeding to do and the plants I consider desireable would be free from munchy holes.

I don't think slugs are trainable, though. I think they're just slugs. Ewwww. Just thinking about them gives me the heebie jeebies.

yuck

proud to be an American today

Surely you know that I am a tad irritated with the American government. Surely you know that I wish George Bush would get a message from God that sounds more rational than the messages he's gotten before.

Today, however, I might have found out how he feels. It feels like power.

I found poison ivy today. In a new location--under the peonies in the back yard. I went inside to get the RoundUp to kill the stuff.

I was very careful around the peonies to keep the spray only on the poison ivy bits. I didn't want to kill my peonies.

When I got to the two other patches of poison ivy, however, I felt the testosterone of a Navy SEAL building up inside of me. There was the poison ivy hiding out among other weedy, but generally harmless, plants. I thought, "I hate that poison ivy so much, I don't care if I kill the stuff around it. The stuff around it might have brushed against it and gotten itch inducing. The stuff around it could be hiding poison ivy under the brushy foliage."

So I killed it all.

I just sprayed that RoundUp all over those damned weeds and poison ivy plants. I may have killed lunaria, which I wanted, but I wanted to kill the poison ivy more. I could get more lunaria.

It seems a remarkable parallel to me with the perceived behavior of the Americans.

Proud to be an American today. Yes, indeed, there's a lot to be said for American power in the garden.

Posted by dotty at May 22, 2004 02:52 PM