Tag: drought

Sliding on Slug Slime

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“Girls are like slugs—they probably serve some purpose, but it’s hard to imagine what.”
― Bill Watterson, in Calvin and Hobbes

how many slugs can you count in this picture?

Summer rain, so desperately needed In much of our country, has been a frequent visitor to the Pacific Northwest. While corn is dying of thirst in the Midwest, we are overflowing with…slug slime and the lovely multicolored creatures that produce it. They appear out of the ground after a rain like seeds that plump and germinate miraculously overnight. The slug crop burgeons, and with it, oozy trails of glistening slug slime.

We live on a hill, which means I need to walk downhill to the barn. On one particular day, the path included a slug (or three) under each foot. That produces a certain memorable squish factor.

I’ve learned to don my rubber boots and just squash and slide. There will undoubtedly be more slugs to replace the flattened lost, like watching freeze-dried shrinky dinks spontaneously rehydrate.

I’d love to send the rain to those who need it most, but part of the deal includes the slugs must go too. With gallons of slime.

Of course, I’d miss them and their sticky icky gooiness. But it is time for someone else to figure out what their purpose is.

I’ve given up.

like two slugs passing in the night…

Unruffled Calm

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photo by Josh Scholten

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky, and the clustering stars above seem to impart a quiet to the mind.
Jonathan Edwards

During times like the last couple weeks,  nature has certainly been less than calm (wildfires, windstorms, drought, overbearing heat, flooding).  Anxiety and worry seems an appropriate response in the face of such tragedy.

We have been spared in our part of the world, dealing only with unseasonably cool and wet weather, disrupting the growing season and hay harvest.  Our anxieties, ever present nevertheless,  are quite little compared to those elsewhere who have lost family members, their homes and all their belongings.

Even with that point of view, anxiety and doubt can take root like a weed in a garden patch– overwhelming, crowding out and impairing plants trying to be fruitful.  The result is nothing of value grows–only unchecked proliferation of more weeds.

I need reminding to keep my anxiousness winnowed out.  I don’t need a large scale natural disaster as impetus.  I simply need to look up at the sky to know: I am not God and never will be.  My worry helps no one, changes nothing,  only hinders me from being fruitful.

Reaching for the unruffled calm overawes, imparting quiet to the mind, taking a deep breath and knowing He is in control.