I am a slug murderer

I don't feel good about it.  Really.  In fact, last night, I even cried a little.  I don't like killing things.

But I'm trying to grow food.  That I will eat.  Me.  And Jeff.  Not them.  I am not growing slug food.  So when I see them, I gotta kill them.

This year, I have only killed one in the slug bath of death (beer.)  I went out during the night once to take a peek and I saw two slugs on the edge, getting a nice good taste of the Corona, but in the morning, they were gone.

I did some research about how to kill slugs.  One website said just poke'em with a stick. Just skewer them.  Slug-kabobs.  And I'm sorry, but I can't do that.

I also read that you can sprinkle oat bran in the slug area and the slugs will eat the oat bran and then die.  Sorta like birds eating rice, except I'm not sure that one is true.  I tried this and sure enough, the slugs sure did eat the oat bran, but I don't know if they died or not.  I mean, I don't think they swallow and then immediately keel over dead.  So maybe they died later. I don't know.

But I do know that ants sure like oat bran, too.  Because over the next few days, they sure walked off with a lot of it.

You know who else likes oat bran?  Birds.  Birds like oat bran.  I'm not sure how they found it.  Did they smell it?  Did they see it from the air?  Did one bird find it and then go tell all his friends?  I don't know.  But I sure enjoyed watching the birds come visit my yard.

So my killing method of choice has been salt.  And believe me, it's not fun.  When you sprinkle salt on a slug, it shrivels up and writhes, as if in pain.  It's really hard to watch.  But I make myself watch.  I don't let myself look away and ignore it and pretend it didn't happen.  I don't like killing them.  But I'm doing it so I can provide local, organic, healthy food for myself and my husband.

I hope God forgives me.

Because let me tell you something, I sure have killed some slugs.

Last week, I killed seven.  Six with salt and one with beer.  Saturday night, I killed 20.  Last night, 12.  Tonight, 19.  For a grand total of 58.

58 dead animals.  Because of me.

Tonight, I got three of them as they were feasting on the corpse of a slug that got killed yesterday.  As far as I'm concerned, if they're gonna eat a brother's corpse, they deserve to die.

My next concern:  how badly am I screwing up the soil by pouring all this salt on it?