Beerly there

Snails and slugs like beer, or so I have been told. I read that if you place small amounts of beer in containers and put them in the garden they act as a deterrent to snails and slugs, they evidentially get merrily drunk fall in and drown.

Not liking to intentionally the kill any small creature, I have never sprayed the gardens and have only used snail bait to get rid of the slithery things that think I am providing a banquet of new seedlings for their dining pleasure.

We had a past-its-use-by-date small bottle of beer in the fridge, so yesterday I thought we would give this organic way of dealing with snails and slugs a go. Some new courgette seedlings had been planted the day before and two small pots of beer were put next to them. To test the theory we found a lone snail and put it by one of the containers. It stuck it’s head in took a slip and slithered away. I was like ‘hey you are supposed to drink it all and get happily drunk, and then croak’. The snail had other ideas and slid off. Some garden snails can move up to 55 yards per hour and I think we have the fastest ones in the neighbourhood.

This morning I checked the beer-filled containers thinking that they would be full of deceased snails and at least a few slugs. Not a gastropod to be found! Am I using the wrong kind of beer? Has word gone out to the gastropods in our neighbourhood that we are not using top-notch well-brewed beer? Do they prefer tinnies and not stubbies or would they prefer the beer in a glass? Or are they sleeping off one hell of a hangover?.

Babs

Betty is arriving soon....

06 June 2010 (written 7 years ago)

I have been kind to perfect strangers for several hours today. Escorted one couple to their car protecting them with my umbrella from the heavy rain that Wellington is awash with. Let a motorist in the very busy Queensgate mall know that we were leaving and our car-park would be free for her to take. Offered to take several elderly women to their cars once again using my umbrella. Why was I doing penance?

We had been to Harvey Normans and decided after 10 long years that Trev the Breadmaker isn't going to last much longer. He is starting to miss a beat when on the mixing cycle and the screeching noise he makes is beginning to scare the Tui's. In fact the day is getting closer where he will bake his final loaf of bread for us. I have enjoyed my love affair with Trev, he has been a faithful kitchen companion. Never sulks when I yell at him for producing bricks instead of loaves and no turning his back on me when I apologise for not putting the correct amount of yeast in the mixture. He will either be sent north to the son in Auckland or put out to pasture in a free-to-a-good-home shop (that's if any exist).

I found a lovely replacement for him called Betty. She was sitting on a pile of boxes in the shop looking ever so pretty. I asked the salesman, in the electrical department,where the box was that she came in. The reply was 'there is no box. Our new manager has them all thrown out'. I was stunned. Who in their right mind sells articles like breadmakers to customers minus the box it came in. So being me I informed the salesman that his manager was 'a blistering barnacles idiot' and that customers, female ones in particular, like the things they buy to come in boxes and also where was the instruction booklet and the warranty? I also asked if the box was somehow out the back of the shop. 'Oh no' he replied' its gone'.

Him Indoors was in a different part of the shop and missed all of this thank goodness. We did decide to buy Betty the Breville Breadmaker after all of this even though we have to wait 4 weeks for her to arrive, in a box, with an instruction booklet and a warranty, oh and a 40 dollar discount. Calling shop managers a 'blistering barnacles idiot' sometimes pays off.

So that's why today, you would have found me being nice to perfect strangers, a sort of guilty conscience for losing it in a department store.

Babs

PS the censor gods got at some of the words in here,  guess which one....