Tonight in the garden: Baby crickets! Adorable, no larger than ants, doing figure eights on the back porch, waggling their antlers--no, antennae--to and fro.

Also, the first real snail in a several weeks. And the first tawny slug I've seen in a while, perched atop the hay-covered compost pile in the open yard. Both were doing important work: The snail was devouring a dying nasturium, and the slug would have contributed to the decomposition process, but I can't count on them to stay with these assignments. Tomorrow night they'd discover the beanlings, or the basil, or the Swiss chard which is due to sprout any minute now. So into the deadly vinegar bath.

I hope that if/when I get chickens (to be named Ruby and Hallah, and addressed collectively as chookchooks), that they enjoy the taste of pickled mollusks. Good protein all around, and good calcium in the shells, if they can stand the taste of the vinegar...In the meantime, they get poured onto the weeds embedded the concrete porch.