[Update: data in the comments about how slugs and maggots are good for you. Comes from a doctor, so probably not a joke.]
I've seen one before, they are these tiny, black things, without a house, so small they can get under the garden door. [Update: seems this one is not so black and slightly bigger. Also, by "house" I meant "shell", I was thinking in Danish there, it's called a "snail's house" in Danish.]
Coming in from my early morning constitutional today, I found another of the little Fokkers, not just trails this time. Or maybe the same one, because as you can see, I did salt the entrance yesterday. ... Maybe I locked it in! (Anyway, I found a leaf outside and carried him out.)
They're really small, less than an inch and thin.
Sounds more like a slug problem.
ReplyDeleteSlugs seem to be more active in shade, and unless there was a street light outside, I'd say the hall was dark when this chap was about.
1) Do you have damp in the hall?
2) Salt is effective against slugs - small strip across his entrance.
3) Don't leave important papers around there.
I had slugs in my digs in Manchester. Never stood on one, but often woke to a silver carpet.
We had rising damp, that was the main problem, it was a 80's or 90's back to back terrace, so that would be expected. Since your house is about 100years younger you shouldn't have these problems.
I was not very conscious of the difference, since (I just looked up), both slugs and snails are the called "snegl" (pronounced very close to "snail") in Danish.
ReplyDeleteThe common hall/stairwell in not heated, and given it's North West England, I'll bet it's pretty damp often. But I don't think we have rising damp.
This is the first year I've seen such trails by the way.
There's a street lamp outside, but there's also a night light on, on the ground floor of the hall, all night.
I don't think anybody leaves important papers in the hallway here. Except once I found a receipt for net stockings and a video called "legs fetish" or such. :-)
I'll give it a bi' of salt, thanks.
This is such a sweet picture ! Makes me fell empathy for that poor "snegl" trying hard to find his way home.
ReplyDeleteMaybe he fell in a cup of coffe and got too nervous to think... Reminds me of the caffeinated spider's web, who was also probably trying hard to make a web... :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Caffeinated_spiderwebs.jpg
Hah. Poor spider!
ReplyDeleteHow the heck do you "caffeinate" a spider. (OK, I don't really care.)
I've cut down on coffee. I've found out that it ramps up my emotions, and that hyper-stimulated emotions have damaged me much in the past.
Eolake,
ReplyDeleteYou're in England, drink tea.
As to hyper stimulation, you seem OK, not raising a passel of idiot, recalcitrant children, with your significant other muttering in the background that you can NOT buy another Nikon FM2, as the baby needs a multimillion dollar medical procedure.
Eewww, slugs!
(Updated with pics, found a live one this morning.)
ReplyDeleteEven the English have become coffee drinkers these days.
ReplyDeleteAlthough judging from the convenience store here, very few of them drink good coffee, all they sell there is instant.
--
I've had hyper-control on my hyper-emotions, which has been bad for my mental health sometimes. But it's easing up now, which is really nice. Been working on it for years.
Eolake said...
ReplyDelete"...little Fokkers" :-)
LOL!! You're WAY too nice to them! Those are disgusting!
GOOD JOB on the salt! lol! People are going to start asking you why you already have frost on your door frame! lol! ;-)
Nah, they're cute. Though a little sticky to the touch when I rolled him onto the leaf.
ReplyDelete"Nah, they're cute. Though a little sticky to the touch when I rolled him onto the leaf."
ReplyDeleteEO, you are one sick puppy!!!
CUTE!!!
What can I say, I love all god's creatures. Except, coincidentally, sick puppies. Well, all dogs, really.
ReplyDeleteShell --> snail.
ReplyDeleteNudist --> slug.
A couple weeks ago, I found a BIG slug crawling inside my house, about 12-15 cm (5-6 inches)! The strangest thing was, it seemed to be coming from the balcony, and we're on the first floor. So it must've climbed at least 4 meters for Vishnu knows what reason (it hadn't rained), then from the pillar to the balcony over the horizontal beam, then (Allah knows why) got lost inside, where it's not damp at all. A likely story, the bugger was rather fast. Could've done the whole thing in less than an hour.
"Don't leave important papers around there."
Ha ha, yes, good advice. Unless you don't mind seeing them slimed... "Aaargh! Horror movie on my tax declaration!" (^_^)
(Or worse yet, on the *illustrated* receipt for your GF's fishnet stockings!)
"I don't think anybody leaves important papers in the hallway here."
Really? You sure? Nobody does that?
My, people are odd in the UK...
Except for especially insistent pests like mosquitoes, I usually hate killing without need. So I did with the slug like I do with even scorpions now that our "magic oil" jar has its quota: I expell them. (With two 'L's, because I ex-spell those I don't need for my mumbo-jumbo hog warts potion.)
For scorpions, I take extra precautions: I lose them in the forest, one Km away from the house and across two roads, so I'm pretty sure THAT one won't be back any time soon. (Makes for a peaceful night time stroll, with deadly danger held in my hands... ;-)
We've got children in the house. They're carefully warned.
Scorpions are amazingly feisty and touchy buggers, but unlike mosquitoes, any incidents are just accidents. They don't SEEK humans out.
There's another reason for trapping a trespassing scorpion in an empty box of CD-Rs and getting rid of it far, far away a long time ago on the Dark Side of the Forest: they're amazingly resilient. You're never sure to kill them fast by squashing them or spraying insecticide, you might only make them angry and so much more dangerous. Better act according to the rules of international diplomacy: talk all nice and harmless, and then eliminate the problem in the least bellicist way possible. Namely, Stalinian deportation in a pleasant mediterranean-weather gulag!
Last time I got stung by a wasp, was some 23 years ago, and it was an accident: I sat on it and on my bed at the same time. You wouldn't believe how harmless most dangerous creatures become when you don't start the hostilities. Even cobras might prefer to leave you alone. (Mamba snakes are different: they're highly aggressive, far more than a rattlesnake. Careful where you tread in Africa...)
"How the heck do you "caffeinate" a spider."
My guess is, you treat her like a teabag, but in coffee, that's already made. And not too hot! "What else?" :-)
I bet spiders wouldn't mind being "boozed". *I* don't!
"You're in England, drink tea."
Jolly good, old chap! Sounder words were never spoken! :-)
"Eewww, slugs!"
ReplyDeleteLet the children play with the slugs, and save a mint on expensive trendy new themed toys.
Then you can afford that umpteenth Nikon FM2. ;-)
"You're WAY too nice to them! Those are disgusting!"
Well, same can be said about the fokking organ of men, until you get to know it better. ;-)
AND it can also be "a little sticky to the touch". ;-)
Which isn't a masculine exclusive... 8-p~~~ (drools)
I've heard that the drool of slugs (specifically, more than snails) is very efficient in helping skin wounds heal.
Remember, modern Medicine has rehabilitated the ancient but very efficient use of leeches, and even maggots. The only real side effect being instinctive disgust of some patients! :-)
Leeches are invaluable for some vascular conditions, like surgical reattachment of an amputated body part, where their saliva prevents blood clotting in micro-vessels and can save the tissues from dying out. Maggots only eat dead flesh, so they're used for cleaning up wounds with damaged and devitalized tissue, or infected necrotic lesions. Dead tissue is what helps dramatic infections. All these animals are absolutely sterile when used medically, specially bred for this use, and destroyed afterwards (rather ungrateful, that!) to ensure no multi-resistant hospital germs get helped to propagate.
I once saw a documentary about the decay of a carrion. Hugely interesting. The flies that lay their eggs in it bring maggots, and we are naturally disgusted by them like with everything associated with death (an atavistic evolution that helps survival), but did you know? Maggots secrete some of the absolutely most powerful natural antibiotics known to science! They don't just clean the world of rotting flesh, they clean the rotting flesh itself. Why? It's most simple: would YOU leave a huge portion of your feast to billions of proliferating bacteria? It's a competition for food in a world of vultures, you know.
People who have accepted treatment by leeches or maggots testify that it's very painless, mostly it tickles(maggots) or tingles(leeches), and the results on their body's health are near-miraculous.
Don't forget that many natural antibiotics, like Penicillin, come from sources as icky as rotting fruit.
Basically, I believe in this highly christian rule: God did not create any vile, bad, or evil animal. We CAN coexist if we make some intelligent efforts.
Except for those pesky mosquitoes!!!
"EO, you are one sick puppy!!! CUTE!!!"
Hey, sick puppies ARE cute!!!
Have a heart, guys. ;-)
(And remember, every time you selfishly have sex on your own -instead of pleasuring a woman!-, God causes a kitten to get a runny nose.)
P.S.: I didn't know Fokker had made models tiny enough to slip through the door of a house. Amazing, what a long way miniaturization has come! :-)
ReplyDeleteBut then again, it's a Dutch company, so you probably know more than me about it.
Fun trivia: in literary Arabic, snail is "halazoon". Try slipping it in a mundane conversation some day. "Mr Mayor, you're so corrupt and inept, you're nothing but a spineless halazoon!
- Ooowh! That's not truuue! The Powerpuff Girls are just my assistants! Ooowh, what a pickle, what a pickle!"
Pascal said...
ReplyDelete"Shell --> snail.
Nudist --> slug."
LOL!! GOOD ONE!!
"A couple weeks ago, I found a BIG slug crawling inside my house, about 12-15 cm (5-6 inches)!"
Pascal, I don't know what you call them there but...*we* call them 'Banana Slugs' over here and...they are actually VERY STICKY to the touch! And...you do NOT want to touch them...unless you have hot water and soap and want to spend quite a bit of time trying to wash that yuck off!
And...if any doctor was going to use maggots or leeches, they better be carrying me in after a barrel of drinks for that! I have heard of it/them but...I don't care *how* clean, etc. those little buggers are...they're *still* GROSS!!!! lol!
Banana slug, gun slug, whatever... "Is that a gun your holding, or just a banana?
ReplyDelete- No, ma'am, I'm simply happy to see you."
I was clever enough to avoid touching it. Dead leaves aren't made for dogs, you know! (Well, not JUST for dogs...)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRight but...Eo touched the one he had to move out! Ewwwww! :-(
ReplyDeleteMae West would be PROUD of you, Pascal! ;-)
Ah, Mae West. When women were women. True, natural, authentic, spirited...
ReplyDeleteI miss these days. (See my latest comment here.)
But back to slithering beasties.
A wife and her husband were having a dinner party for all the major status figures in Rome, Italy. The wife was very excited about this and wanted everything to be perfect. At the very last minute, she realized that she didn't have any snails for the dinner party, so she asked her husband to run down to the beach with the bucket she was handing him to gather some snails.
Very grudgingly, he agreed.
He took the bucket, walked out the door, down the steps, and out to the beach. As he was collecting the snails, he noticed a beautiful woman strolling alongside the water just a little further down the beach. He kept thinking to himself, wouldn't it be great if she would just come down and talk to me...but he went back to gathering the snails.
All of a sudden, he looked up and the beautiful woman was standing right over him. They got to talking and she invited him back to her place, just down the beach.
They were at her apartment and they started messing around. It got so hot and heavy that he was exhausted afterwards and passed out there.
At seven o'clock the next morning, he woke up and exclaimed, "Oh no! My wife's dinner party!" He gathered all his clothes, put them on real fast, grabbed his bucket, and ran out the door.
He ran down the beach, all the way to his condo. He was in such a hurry that when he got to the top of the stairs, he dropped the bucket of snails. There were snails all the way down the stairs!
Just then the door opened, with a very angry wife standing in the doorway wondering where he'd been all this time.
He looked at the snails on the steps, then he looked at her, then back at the snails and said, "Come on guys, we're almost there!"
LOL!! GOOD ONE, Pascal! :-)
ReplyDeleteTalking about slugging it and going bananas:
ReplyDeleteMOROBE PROVINCE, New Guinea -- Police in Papua New Guinea are hunting the leader of a cult who promised villagers a bumper banana harvest if they had sex in public.
The man and his followers fled naked into the wilderness when police tried to arrest them last weekend, according to local news reports. It said the villagers in Morobe province had been promised their banana harvest would increase 10-fold every time they had sex in public.
According to the articles, the cult leader was wanted for a range of alleged offenses over the past four months, including threatening people and illegal sexual activity.
Inspector Adam Busil said officers had surrounded the man's hut but he refused to come out. The suspect then made a dash for freedom with about seven naked followers, adding that the suspect "used his two wives as a human shield".
[Pascal :] I swear, guys, it wasn't me! I would never "nail" a woman as a human shield. Besides, it's a very uncomfortable position, running away like that... um, not that I would know!!!
Now, if you excuse me, I have to go feed the jaybirds.
Like the server said: "whowe"!