Hm. Main event of the day was going to the Fosters' to get some house sitting instructions. I think it'll be pretty cool-- a nice garden to take care of, chickens, a dog, and a cat. Plus I hadn't seen Shannon in tons of time and she's heading out to Montana and won't be back till long after I've gone back to MHC. Chatted awhile about animals & college & whatnot. Shannon and I met when we were four. We rollerskated at the elementary school and she was my first non-obligatory friend (as in, we weren't babysat together or thrown together by our parents' friendship). I start housesitting on Tuesday, and they'll be back on the 2nd or 3rd of July.

My other accomplishment of the day involves our own garden. Mom planted "ever-bearing strawberries" in the garden, in these fruit bins (for non-orchard people, wooden boxes, about 3 x 3 foot square with a depth of maybe 2 feet or so). Well, when I first arrived home they were great, you'd go out every day and find enough to fill a cereal bowl with. Lately, not so hot. About two weeks ago I decided it must be slugs and potato bugs that had commenced a strawberry destruction binge. I killed a number of potato bugs and slugs before realizing that 1. potato bugs are not big eaters of strawberries, 2. the slugs I was finding were pretty small and not capable of consuming large amounts of berries, and 3. something bigger was definitely the culprit. Oh, and I may have just made things worse by smearing slug guts around the bins (my thought process was that the slugs would see, oh, there's my dead mate! perhaps something nearby is killing slugs. I, as a slug, should scram to avoid being killed. According to Merrie's handbook on slugs, not so. In fact, slugs are ATTRACTED to their dead companions. So, shows you what I know about the average slug psyche).

Also according to Mer's handbook, I made some "slug traps" out of cool whip containers and water bottles. Strategy on this one: drown them in beer. However, no slugs seem to have drowned in the beer besides the ones that I threw in there myself. Perhaps any writer of a slug handbook is too attracted to slugs to actually steer readers toward effective killing methods? I don't know.

Due to the lack of slug carcasses and the continuing decimation of the strawberries, we thought that maybe birds were eating them. Next plan took longer to put into action. But, today Mom and Tim supplied netting to cover the strawberries with. I made a nice little covering over both bins, and I felt pretty handy pounding nails and measuring out netting. Maybe I will grow more than just weeds in my future garden.

Less than 150 pages to go now, and the Dickenesque loose threads seem to come together a little more... well, some of them at least.

Supposed to rain tomorrow.