Oddities of the Season

Last evening, around 6:30 p.m., I went out to check on the slug activity in the kale bed.  There are still a few there each night, but mostly they are not eating the new kale.  This is because each of the young kale plants is now surrounded first by a thin cardboard tube, then a yogurt container, and finally by a circle of copper mesh.  They could parachute in, or tunnel, but it's much harder than it was at the beginning with just the cardboard tube.

However, on my way to the kale, I passed by a 5-foot tall forsythia.  At the 4.5 foot level, I found 2 large black slugs, each about 3-4 inches long and as thick round as my thumb.  They were posed on neighboring branches of the forsythia, each eating the little new leaves that follow the flowers.

I have never seen slugs that high in the air; indeed, have never seen them have any interest in a bush of any size.  Just one more strange thing in this strange spring-ish season.  At least they haven't discovered the peony buds.