It also gives me almost free food.
Fine, after the cost of soil amendments, seeds, seedlings, and so on, it’s not exactly free. Still, I love to garden and I share that love with my children.
Which also means I hoped to pass on my hatred of snails, earwigs, and gophers to my children as well.
I had a feeling after all the Disney movies, they wouldn’t share my anger at the rabbits or birds who visit – and snack on – my garden.
Sadly, instead of my aversion, they’ve decided the snails and other bugs in our garden are their “friends”. And with friends like my children, I don’t need to invest in bug killer.
The snails, they poke and prod with sticks to see them retreat into their shells. They cover them in grass clippings and weeds, hoping to keep them “warm”. They move them around the yard to see if they want to climb trees, fences, or play in the rocks.
The earwigs are placed in a bug catcher with an assortment of rolly pollys (pollies?) and beetles. There they are contestants in a gruesome battle to the death that my children call, “the bugs playing together”.
And the gophers…well, knock on wood, I haven’t had a problem with them yet.
If my children were behaving with malicious intent, I’d put a stop to it. But they actually think they’re “playing” with these poor bugs.
Wait! What did I just say? Poor bugs?
