Thursday, November 23, 2017

Rain lovers

From my computer's weather people:

11:46 PM. 11 degrees Celsius. Tomorrow's high, 13 degrees. Record high over the last 30 years, 12 degrees.

Warmer, then. A tiny bit.

And wetter?

It's raining. It has been raining. It's going to keep on raining. But in the last 30 years, it has rained 25 out of 30 times on this day. Nothing new here.

The cat goes out, comes back in dripping and purring madly. Stands over my keyboard and shakes herself, as a dog does. Raindrops spatter over the screen; I dry it off, wipe muddy footprints off the desk. Chia purrs. She loves this weather.

Slugs love the rain, too. I ventured out to refill the bird feeders (the birds don't seem to mind the wet), and found a baby slug on a rock. I brought him in to see his pretty patterns.

Hunkered down, moaning.

Under the light inside, I discovered that he was covered in racing mites. He didn't look happy about them, either. These mites, if the infestation is heavy enough, can kill a slug.

I took a few photos, then washed him off with chilled, filtered water. The mites ended up on the rock, and I washed them away before they could climb back on board.

"That feels better!"

Immediately, the slug woke up, stretched to his full 2 inches, and set off to explore, obviously happier. I took a few more photos, and carried his rock out to the garden again.

"Bye! And thanks!"


1 comment:

  1. It was a strange warm feeling yesterday with all the wind and dark clouds. Had trouble getting cool enough last night to sleep. Most of my cats hated the rain, but they lived in Southern California and didn't know what it was. - Margy

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