Monday, September 14, 2009

Ecosystems in my home

Don't get too freaked out about this, folks, but last winter a slug moved into our house. We knew it was there because every morning we would find trails of scribble all over the plants and the rugs, but we could never find the darn thing, until one magical day (months later), I found it sliming up a branch of the Mexican cinnamon bush and chucked it outside.

Well, today I found out where it had been living. You see, I'm not a very good housekeeper, but I am a plant freak, which has created a terrifying condition in the corner of our living room: jungle-itis. We have packed about ten plants and one terarrium into the little sunshine nook and with all the beautiful greenery, certain household tasks get a bit neglected. Like sweeping and vacuuming and dusting. I mean, it always looks nice over there, so why fuss about the details?

Erm. Yeah. Back to the slug. Anway, the place looked lived-in. So today, I finally pulled out all the plants to give them a little extra attention. Everything was encrusted in dead plant-y bits, sprinkled in potting soil and dabbled with dead bugs--everything that wasn't swaddled in cobwebs. It was pretty gross. Not as gross as moving the bookshelf/plant stand and looking at the floor beneath it, however. At first I thought Fiona'd spilled a bottle of glitter. Then I realized that an inch of spider webs gummed with slug scribble creates a remarkable shimmering fabric (nice if you didn't think about it, or notice the bug corpses). Even worse was that even after I swept and vacuumed, the floor was still slug-sticky.

Eww, eww and double-eww.

But all's well that ends well. Not only is the corner spic-n-span, I've convinced Sweetie-Pie to add a base to the bottom of the plant-stand. Not only will there be no more slug hidey-home, but now the second shelf will receive sunlight. Bye, bye books, hellooooo more plants!

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