Snippets…

Am doing a cleanse.  I really dislike cleanses or anything which restricts my eating habits.  But I do feel good. I think this is important to do as I have many food and pollen allergies and at the moment I feel healthy and my eyes are not at all puffy!  It is also good to exercise dietary discipline from time to time.  Four more days of this, counting today.

Today is overcast and I am glad for it.  When it is nice out, I have a hard time not being outside.  I did lots of diddling around the garden yesterday.  My idea of a great time!  Today I can focus on email, organizing, and correspondence that I need to get to.

Evenings have been movie and reading time.  On Thursday, we watched the  comedy, It’s Complicated. On Friday, we watched the more serious,  This is England, and last night we watched (again serious) Innocent Voices.  I have been reading a lot.  Mostly about India and Hinduism and Buddhism in preparation for my trip coming up June 28th.  But also, after reading Let the World Spin by Colum McCann, I decided he might be one of my favorite authors.  So I got all his books out of the library (kind of crazy of me!!  There are many!) and am on a reading frenzy.  Right now, I am reading McCann’s Dancer about Rudolf Nureyev.  What else?  Kelly gave me a wonderful CD called The Yoga Sessions by Masood Ali Khan which I have listened to twice now as I did my yoga practice. It is really good.

And as I said, Snippets…I am all over the place here.  I am dismayed by the SLUGS in the VEGETABLE garden.   They are horrendous this year!!!  There are seemingly thousands out here at the coast where it is wonderfully damp, their paradise.  They have almost razed my heritage seed starts to the ground.  I only have three remaining zucchini plants (and only because I protected them by placing them in pots). They have eaten my tomato plants in the garden boxes (the ones in the green house are intact!).   It is too painful to go on describing what they have eaten.  Let’s just say, it is a huge disaster!  The only survivors are the plants in the green house and this morning, I found FOUR huge slugs in there!  Needless to day, I have become RUTHLESS when it comes to slugs and dealing with them.  I apologize to my Buddhist friends. I once asked Swami Vikashananda, who said we must never kill any living creature, what to do about the slugs who eat up your little plant starts?  He  said, “Don’t kill them. Simply plant more so that they too can eat.”  Sorry, but that has got to be the most lame advice I have ever heard.  Plant more?  I tried it!  Guess what? The slugs  eat more. Word gets out in the slug community and they come in droves and have a veggie fest!  I hand picked them for a while and brought them across the street, but I swear they ended up right back in the garden.  The same ones or their cousins.  I went so far as to get Sluggo and other organic slug baits, but the constant rain washes it away within a day and I am not out here enough to put the bait out every day.  Eggshells, copper wire, copper tape, beer, Sluggo…I have tried it all!  Nothing works to keep these slimy creatures at bay!  I will spare you the details of how I am now dealing with them, but suffice to say, they are not welcome in my garden.  Woe to any slug who makes his/her way into the garden boxes!

By the way, if you have any advice on dealing with slugs (alternatives to what I have mentioned above), please send in your comments!  (sorry to end on a slug note!)