Thursday, April 27, 2006


When Aristoteles came up with the "unmovable mover" as a proof for the existence of God I would say he had probably not had a gastropod infestation in his Helenic garden. For me the snail and the slug (and the cutworm) are my proof to the contrary. Or at least that Noah was much too patient. I have always considered my taste for garden plants to be impeccable. The fact that slugs and snails love my hostas and ligularias, suggests that perhaps the devil himself has impecable taste. My mother would go into our Buenos Aires garden in the evening with a candle and scissors to control the slug population. garden. She got too close to a palm tree with her candle and the flames leapt up to the top in seconds. By the time the firemen arrived the fire was out. And the palm tree survived to see many summers more. Not too long ago my Rebecca came in with this ....in hand and said, "Papi, scan it." Unlike my mother I did not use scissors. My shoe sufficed.