Jaci Dawn

When I was in high school sometimes we’d play this “game” in Language Arts: the teacher would pull out a subject and you had to stand in front of everyone and do an impromptu speech on that subject.

Everyone hated it.

Sometimes finding something to say to go along with a photo of the day feels the same way. I should have created a second blog for my 365 and just put the photos over there, then I could come here and blog thoughtfully. But, no, I didn’t want to go to all that extra work.

I will have to suck it up and blog every day about something, even when my ideas run short. My ideas for photos run short frequently as well, but I figure I started this and I should finish this.

Today’s offering is from a slug’s point of view: the gateway to one of my flower beds.

To the human eye, it’s just a lot of stuff in earth tones: bark, mouldering leaves, dead grasses, tiny green plants, a spots of blue on the copper tape.

I don’t even know if the spots of blue would register on a slug’s eyes, but a slug would certainly know the copper was there as soon as the slug touched it. The copper’s electromagnetic force combined with the slug’s slime creates a slug shock.

The copper is there to keep slugs out of my tender garden. It is the only organic solution to slugs that I have been able to find (mind you, I don’t mind non-organic solutions to slugs. Anything that gets rid of them, right? It’s just that what poisons a slug could poison the song birds and neighbor cats). And copper is a lot less labor.

The drawback to copper is that it is hard to find (I despise that sticky-tape cheap copper stuff they sell in all the garden centers) and when you do find it, it isn’t cheap. Then there’s maintenance: it gets stepped on, folds over, or leaves fall onto it creating little “bridges” of safety for the slug.

This year, I will need to invest in more copper. When we first moved in here, I was thrilled that there were so few slugs. What I did not consider was that there were also fewer flowers and flower beds and a lot more grass. There was no insect life to speak of.

But Don and I have cultivated an insect-friendly world, added more flowers and plants, and therefore more damp hiding places for slugs. And slugs find my irises alluring.

So I put up miniature copper slug fences and hope for the best.

And in the winter, I admire them for their colors. Those are pretty blue spots.