Snail Warfare and Hobbits

Many things have occurred since I last wrote a blog entry. I always hesitate to post anything though cause I don't have any good pictures to show for it. I also start to feel a little conceited when I'm constantly posting pictures of myself. So...I'll skip the pictures and just describe the more recent events of my life. Maybe if your lucky I'll think of an interesting picture to add in the process.

In the month of April there were a bunch of changes in my ward. The young single adult (ysa) ward I'm in was combined with another ysa ward from a different stake. We continue to attend in the same building as before, so essentially the other ward joined into our ward. Our ward also got a new name to reflect this change. We're now called the Santa Teresa Ward. Everyone in the ward (except the bishop) was also released from their callings. We got two new counselors in the bishopric, one from each stake that the new ward represents. I was released from being the Elder's Quorum President. A week later I was called to be the Ward Mission Leader. This is an exciting new calling for me, and I enjoy it. It will be a good growing experience for me.

I also got to go to Utah for Sheri's graduation from BYU and see family. YAY!

In the month of May, I went on a week long business trip to Lincolnshire, Illinois. To those that are uneducated about Lincolnshire (which was me until just recently), it is a very affluent suburban city in the northern Chicago metropolitan area. Contrary to popular belief, there are no hobbits in Lincolnshire. Believe me, I looked everywhere. I still don't understand how you can have a shire without hobbits. Maybe that will be explained in the upcoming Hobbit movie. I did get to eat at some tasty restaurants, paid for by Snap-on. Among the places I ate were Wildfire (some fancy place with tasty prime rib and key lime pie for dessert), Bob Chinn's Crabshack (I ate a whole POUND of Alaskan King Crab), Cheesecake Factory (herbed crusted fillet of salmon is delicious), and Benihana. My hotel was close to the Chicago Temple so I also went there and did a session. It was nice. It's also a pretty small temple, which I didn't realize before.

No hobbits in here...
or in here...
Hobbit hunting makes me thirsty.

In May I also planted a garden. It's kind of late for planting here in CA. Last year I actually planted my garden in March and was eating stuff by May. I was just slow starting this year. I planted some cherry tomatoes, which seem to be growing nicely. I hope to have some tomatoes in June. Those that will be coming to CA in June should be able to taste them. I also planted some yellow crookneck squash. I planted 6 plants to be exact, because they came in a sixpack of seedlings from OSH. I bought seedlings rather than seeds cause I wanted to try and play catch up. When I returned from the land of no hobbits, I discovered that snails had eaten all but two of my plants! I didn't have any snail problems last year, and I don't think snails even exist in Missouri, so this was a new phenomenon for me. I didn't know that they could literally strip your plants bare of leaves and leave (no pun intended) nothing but a bald stem. I figured it was only a matter of time before they ate my other two plants. I asked for some advice from an OSH employee that works in the nursery (who also happens to be one of my new ward missionaries, YAY!), and she recommended using snail pellets. I bought a box and sprinkled them liberally around my plants. I also bought some zucchini plants to replace the eaten ones, and protected them. I did some searching and found the snail lair. It was a woodpile just a few feet from my garden. There were easily 50 snails living in there. I sprinkled more pellets in the woodpile. To test the effectiveness of the pellets, I picked up a snail and put him on a pellet. The pellet stuck to him, but nothing was happening. So I stuck another one on him. Nothing. It must be slow acting stuff, and not at all like salt. I came back the next morning and found that my experimental snail was dead. It turned into goo, and left an empty shell. Over the next few days, the other snails turned to goo. For some reasons ants seem to like that goo, cause they were all over the snail carcasses. I've declared victory over the snails. HOORAY! If I catch anymore critters eying my squash, they'll get a war they don't want. In the meantime, I have some artichokes that are doing well. I already ate one, and two more are ready to be picked!