Guess what I've been doing for the past half-hour or so?
Searching high and low for a slug.
Yeah, that's right ... a slug!
We found a very large slug yesterday that my 10-year-old son wanted to keep. So we put him in a dish with some mud and grass and leaves. And we put some plastic wrap over the top, which we tore a little hole in for air.
Well ... I guess the hole wasn't little enough.
We had been examining the slug earlier today and researching what kind it is. And then we left the dish on a table in our screened-in deck while we went to the store to buy a small plastic aquarium with a lid to keep him in.
We weren't gone even an hour.
When we got home, there was no slug in sight. I picked up the grass and leaves and dug through the mud. Three times! And still I couldn't find the slug. I looked for slime trails but found none. I got down on my hands and knees and examined the wood floor of the deck. I looked in the cracks between the boards. I examined under the table and chairs. I looked between the pages of my Bible that I just closed, which had been laying open on the table. I checked in the monarch caterpillar bin where we are housing three monarch chrysalises right now, four monarch caterpillars, and four black swallowtail caterpillars. I checked the bottom of our shoes.
But still no slug.
(We had a small frog on the deck in a bucket a couple months ago. It was covered, but not tightly. In the morning, he was gone. We had him for one night. We really shouldn't keep critters on our deck anymore. And honestly, keeping the caterpillars is cool and all, like a science/nature lesson. But in real life. But when you bring a plate of food out to the deck to enjoy a nice, relaxing meal in the fresh air ... and you put a bite in your mouth ... and you look over and see these squishy, blobby things that look like living, jelly-filled sausages writhing all over ... yeah, it's not so cool anymore. I gag every time and lose my appetite. I kid you not, no matter what I'm eating, when I look at them, I feel like I have a mouthful of worms. Maybe this will be the only year we keep caterpillars.)
Okay, so maybe the slug found his way out under the door since it doesn't go all the way to the ground? Or .. oh no! ... what is that strange smear on the chair!?!
"Everyone, come here and let me check your butts!"
I checked all of our rear-ends and ... phew! ... no slug guts.
But then ... wait ... didn't I have a cup of coffee on the deck? Oh dear! Could he have travelled up and into my cup and drowned in my coffee? The coffee I just sipped!?!
In all seriousness and disgust, I carried my coffee cup to the sink and began slowly and solemnly pouring it out, wincing the whole time - please no, please no, please no - waiting to see a dead slug in the bottom. Please no, please no, please no ...
Oh, thank God ... no slug. Nothing but coffee.
Oh, thank God!
I figured he must have just gotten out and that we'd never know what happened to him. Or maybe someday we'd find what looked like a dried-up piece of putty on the deck ... and it would be him.
And so since I couldn't believe that I spent that much time looking for a stupid slug ... because I mean, seriously, who does that!?! ... I decided to share this experience on my blog.
And ... wouldn't you know it! ... as I turned on my computer, I looked down on the deck floor and there was a slime trail, glistening in the sunlight. And so once again, I got down on my hands and knees, and I followed this little trail up and over several boards, before I saw that the trail led down between two boards to under the deck.
Well, actually to the layer of screen that is under the deck boards that we had put in so that mosquitoes wouldn't fly up from the floor.
Oh well. Maybe he can crawl all across the length of the screen and find an opening to the outside.
I hope.
If not, maybe he'll just live between the screen and the floorboards with the little frog that escaped months ago. They can be friends.
[Yeah, I don't think we should keep any more critters on our screened-in deck. Or maybe I should call it "that place where critters go to die"!
And it's not just on our deck. A couple months ago, I was walking down a dark hall in our basement when my foot hit something a little squishy ... where there shouldn't be anything squishy. I paused, turned on a light, and looked down. And there ... was a dead bunny. In our basement.
We don't own a bunny.
And two days ago, I was in my garden when I saw something flesh-colored hiding behind the row of raspberries. Freaked me out! I thought it was a person hiding there. But thankfully it was just a deer. So I walked around to the side of it to shoo it out ... when it slowly stood up and began limping away. And I realized that it had a ripped-open, possibly broken, foot, probably from jumping our fence. I felt really bad about that. I mean, I didn't cause it to hurt its foot, but it probably hurt it on something we put up to protect our garden.
And then, after it jumped the fence again and left, I walked out of the garden and shut the gate and looked at the fence next to the gate. And there ... hanging upside down from its foot by a string ... was a dead baby bird. Hanging from the bright string I put around the garden to alert the birds to the hidden deer netting that was around the garden, so that they wouldn't get caught in the netting. What the heck!?! I mean, COME ON!]
Anyway, my son was a little sad. It was one of the first things he's ever asked to keep. (Figures!) I mean, we had just bought an aquarium for it too! For a slug! (Once again ... who does that!?!) And so we put a piece of cucumber and a leaf of lettuce on the floor where the trail led down between the boards. And I told my son that maybe the slug would come back if he was hungry. Or maybe he'd find his way out. (One can dream!)
And that is how I spent part of my afternoon.
I wonder, does this kind of stuff happen only in my house? (Don't tell me. But seriously, does it?)
[Update 8/23/19:
We just found two cute little toads.
Their names are Pickles and Pebbles.]
