For once I’m not talking about my retirement; after four years I’ve got a routine established, weird as it may look to anyone else. No, this is about my husband. He retired a week ago yesterday, and turned off the alarm clock for the last time. Working 45 miles away at a job that began at 8 AM, he used to get up at 5:50 AM and leave the house a little after seven.
This morning he commented that his new schedule had a downside. When he was working, he used to go out and cruise the garden after breakfast for a few minutes, looking for snails and slugs to remove. After an early incident when he accidentally sprayed the rosebushes with RoundUp, he reduced chemicals in the garden to a very small minimum, and his manual snail control methods kept things pretty well under control with only minor amounts of snail bait.
Well, that was when breakfast was at 6:30. When “after breakfast” is after 8 AM, there aren’t any snails visible. They’ve had dinner and gone back to their holes. As far as I know he’s still mulling this over. If the alarm starts going off at 6 AM again, I’ll know why.
Time to break out a few partially-full cans of cheap beer!
Not for him – he’s a recovering alcoholic! I realize it was a kindly meant thought…
Oh, wait a minute – I posted that last comment and then realized you meant for the snails! But since we don’t keep it in the house, we’ll have to find another solution…
How about a baking soda concoction?