After almost two weeks of hot, sunny, beautiful weather, today we have rain! Actually, it started last night. We were sitting out on the back deck before dinner with one of our best friends who is visiting from California, Shawn Flathers. All of the sudden, the thunder rolled, the skies lit up with lightning and down came the rain! It rained all night long, and boy, did we need it! This morning, we said goodbye to Shawn and his three girls for a few days (they are heading over to Sequim to celebrate his parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary...Congratulations Charlie and Marcia!) After they left, Danny decided the mower needed a detail job. A man and his riding mower...now that's a match made in heaven!
I had other chores that needed attending...
For those of you that aren't familiar with the Pacific Northwest, let me introduce you to possibly the most plentiful pest up here...the lowly slug. These guys pictured above are actually pretty small. When we first got up here last July, we came across enormous slugs that, from a distance, we thought were snakes! I am so not joking. We measured one to be 10 inches long when all stretched out on the move and when you poke it with a stick, they shrink up to what strongly resembles.....I'm trying to be delicate, yet accurate here.....ummmm, a giant dog turd. Is that delicate enough for ya? Sorry, but it is true! They are nasty, icky, and slimy. (For the record, I'm referring to the slugs.) Now for my disturbing confession: I walk around the entire perimeter of the lawn and flower beds with my bucket and a pair of tongs, plucking up every slug I come across and I put them in the bucket. Then, I sprinkle a healthy dose of salt on them and skip happily away with the knowledge that my flowers are safe for another day! Before it warmed up, it was not uncommon to end up with over 100 slugs in my bucket every day! Their numbers have dwindled, but with last nights rain, they came out again...and I was ready for them! My neighbor caught me one morning with my tongs and bucket and I apologized for being a weird neighbor...until he showed me his own slug bucket. I immediately felt better. Its a PNW thing...
This, I can't really explain.
Well, yes I can. The oven alarm went off while I was icing my ankle and I hadn't read that I was supposed to release the cake from the pan immediately. So, I think I may have manhandled and bruised the angel food cake while extracting it from the cold pan. Lesson learned. It did taste mighty good with the strawberries and Cool Whhhhip!
And finally, since I've covered some not-so-pretty topics here today, I leave you with beauty! Hayley's high school had a blowout sale at their greenhouse a few weeks ago. I got a bunch of little fuschia plants that I hoped would take. And they did!
Have a lovely day!
1 comment:
I am re-entering the blogging life...I hadnt checked my blogs in so long- the slug story makes my skin creep! kill them. Kill them all.
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