Drunken SnAILers

My poor flowerbed has been having issues. Everything I planted . . died.


And then one day, I saw one of these:



and one of these:


crawling across one of the only remaining healthy leaves. They were chowing down and leaving a shiny silver treasure map for their slimy friends to follow. This confirmed my suspicions from last summer when I found big holes in the leaves of our tomato plants. Last year and twice this year I've laid down slug and snail bait but it hasn't seemed to do any good. They just keep coming.

In my research I've found that snails and slugs like to breed (with themselves, yes they have both male and female parts and don't need a . . . donor . . . to create more), live and lay eggs in overgrown yards - just like the one next door to my townhouse. The neighbors have been trying to sell their place and it's been empty since last fall so no one takes care of the yard. And sure enough, after their feed, I watched a couple of them slither back through the fence to take shelter from the days sun.

I've come across a couple of decent sounding game plans for said "snug" (get it? Half snail, half slug) problem. Someone suggested keeping a salt shaker in your garden and sprinkling it on them whenever they show up - which I don't doubt works, but they usually feed in the early morning and late at night. I don't know about you, but I've got better things to do with my time than salting slugs. Someone else also suggested using some sort of a poker to stab them with? But again, that would require just hanging out and waiting for them to show up. Not gonna happen. Finally my roommate Melissa made an interesting suggestion. She said she'd heard that if you put out a small bowl of beer overnight they'll be attracted to it, slither in and drowned (or at the very least get a buzz and not be able to make it back to your plants).

So I thought I'd give it a try.

Finally bought my first beer. Only ten years too late for the drunken rebellious stage of life.
The whole time I was standing on the gas station waiting to buy it I was singing that really annoying hot dog commercial song in my head, "With the Miller High Life boiled in. Go meat!"

That's it my transgendered friends . . slide on up to the bar and let me buy you a drink.
(insert devilish laugh here)

I felt it was only appropriate that they die in the shade of what they had killed. How's that for irony?
(Is that technically irony? I don't think it is but I couldn't think of a better word. Blame Alanis.)

Is it bad that I counted the slug carcasses with joyful, childish glee?

Yard Mullet: damage in the front, carnage in the back.
I accept full blame for the lame jokes.
and the accidental rhyming.

Let us pretend that you can't see that dead spot in my new sod that's been caused by the pee of one "Chuck the Wonder Dog".
(I've been researching that too but thus far, have not found any good solutions. If you have one, PLEASE send it my way.)

Apparently, the ants quite like the beer too. Let's see them march in a straight line now. HA!

All in all, I counted 52 slugs between my three plates when I emptied them this morning. And I'm almost out of beer. Those suckers can DRINK. I may have go get some more but I think this time I won't go dressed like trailer trash. And as soon as I hit the grocery store I'm going to try another theory . . sprinkle broken egg shells around your plants. Apparently, they will crawl over the shells, get all kinds of sliced up and bleed out. Painful, but necessary (and cheaper). Slug impaled by shell. That could make for some interesting photos too.


PS I was having a hard time naming this blog post because I'm mental like that and in my sleepy daze, I came up with many others that I like so I thought I'd share:

It's Miller time!
Chugs & Slugs
Slugs on a Bender
Bugs on a Bender
Chuggin' Slugs
Beer! It's what's for dinner (and for breakfast, apparently).
The Great Slug Slaughter