Dragonfly

from 2001 negative - scanned 2010

© Anne Bentley

post script: to answer a couple of questions - the dragonfly has landed on mangrove roots - the photo was taken in Sydney NSW Australia

shells of their former selves

They all once housed living creatures... (Sunday walk 24 Jan 2010 Camperdown Cicada shell & Sydney University Darlington Campus)

It doesn't matter how long you've lived with someone, if it's working there is always something new to find out about 'the other'.  I showed AH the cicada shell photos who replied with an eeuww & when I asked, don't you like cicadas? she replied that she doesn't particularly like them!

Gosh, said I. Really?

ah huh.

But they are so ancient and gentle and have little sticky legs that tickle & hook onto your finger... (- her face told me that I'm not winning the cicada cause)

It does explain why I'm the one who has to rescue them out of the house.

She admitted they are "quite fascinating"

I killed Sally

Well, maybe it wasn't Sally - Sally Slug (pronounced Ssthally Ssthhlug with lots of lisping spit please)- but likely one of her relatives, offspring, neighbours - slugs who would potter about our shower & get fat on mould but I haven't seen any for weeks, months even.  That is likely due to the nasty stuff I use to clean the shower & bathtub with - Sally had been a bit slack & too stingy to employ others so I had to do the cleaning.
Slugs in Sydney grow big and the Sally variety, Limax Flavus (clever, hey - I looked it up) is introduced and a particular biggy, growing up to 10cm long - gross to look at too, all sssthloppy and sssthlimy

like this one but way bigger and lots more slimy (photo from Wikimedia under GNU Free Documentation Licence, which I tweaked a little)

So, it was 2am (I'd been sort of working late as the builders next door can't use circular saws at 2am... but for how long!) and I'm tired, about to brush teeth and, in my favourite shoes ever (10 years old and still going) - not only do I step on an unseen slug but I slip about on it a while.  Stepping on a slug has a feeling about it like nothing else.  For one, they are quite solid and two, to propel themselves along, they use volumes of mucus that I suspect goes into overdrive production upon realising imminent death, in this case while death is taking place.

I figured the poor old slug had just come in under the back door to find a cool respite in one of our tree root bound drains after anticipating the heat wave coming this week .
At least death took place on tiles but it still took an effort to clean up and I ended up squirting the bottom of my shoe with carpet cleaner as Sally mucus would not rinse off.

The floor resembled the remainder of a visit from Warrant Officer Ripley's friend, Alien

come on Sigourney-Ripley, slugs can be nice

(An hour later and I'm all over the place reading about director Ridley Scott & the casting of the 1979 film, Alien and looking for a photo of the Alien extending her jaws dripping lots of mucus - and that's why blog writing takes so long!)

==

Years ago we had a slug plague in our lounge room in a house we lived in; in Erskineville (I should mention our eventually mouldy house in Erskineville).  I told AH that salt kills slugs.  So thinking, like fly spray on a fly, this would quickly eliminate the slugs, she sprinkled salt over about 6 large slugs on the carpet just before going bed.  I did not say how the salt would kill them and the resulting mess, just that it did.  Being a real city kid, they didn't have a lot of suburban bugs, slugs and things to poke sticks at in her part of Berlin growing up, AH had no idea what we would wake to the next day.  The stains are probably still there and the bigoted landlord is probably still ripping off his tenants.

(I stole this photo online from a guy in Wales who keeps many varied and often exotic slugs & snails as pets and posts them on a favourite pets website)

nice fly

Hover Flies are about - they are a nice little fly that kills evil aphids and flit about the garden being happy sunny little hovery things.
but how long do they mate for???
this pair was out the front as I waved off AH just now... I watched them a while, chatted, pointed them out,  went inside, looked for the little point & shoot camera, came back out the front & they were still there...

so here they are - fucking little flies:

and what a good time they had!

the sun has set but what's the bet they're still out there...