It wasn’t “actually a bug”. We would generally call a slug, a bug or an insect. But that is not the case. Slugs and snails are soft-bodied mollusks or gastropods! Garden slugs and snails are one to three inches long and are usually gray or brown and maybe have an orangish color about them. However, there are Carpathian blue slugs and banana slugs which are yellow. Slugs come in many different colors from white to black and many colors in between. There is even a rainbow slug! But these probably don’t live in your garden!

Poem by David Lee Venable II

~

In my yard as a boy,

I found a new toy

It filled me with joy,

But it wasn’t really a toy.

It was actually a bug,

Not just that, but a SLUG!

I found very many about

As I worked out their route.

Then I bagged them

And gleefully kept them.

I made them my own pets

Not having any regrets.

~

I put them in a bag

Wrote my name as the tag.

I would need to find a place

A nice little space

To keep them all for me.

So I found someplace, you see,

At the base of the CHIMNEY!

~

You might call them “ick”,

And they really were quite slick.

Well, my mom, she found out

And with an “Ugh!” and a shout,

She said I had to get them OUT!

So that was the sad end

Of my little SLIMY FRIENDS!

~

My son’s memory is put into his own poem. I include this here because this is the kind of things that little boys do!

Thankfully, since they were hidden in a fireplace, I’m so glad that the slugs didn’t become char-broiled bugs!