Just to counterbalance the freakin' rainbows...

...I give you... the Rat-Tailed Maggot:

What five-year-old boy could resist such a disturbing little wriggler? Not ours. And I challenge you to find a critter with a greater need for the services of a PR firm.

They're like a cross between a regular maggot, a legless unborn rat, and a fleshy mini-cucumber with a long tail. Oh, and they're semi-aquatic. A lively garnish for your morning beverage maybe?

And also, since Sharon Astyk posted about garden doom, and Greenpa followed up with more good info, I thought I'd pony up and show you my real-life example. You think you've got weeds? Try this recipe:

- Spend a couple years building up already good soil with organic dairy compost, leaves, straw, chicken bedding, char, and any other organic matter that turns up.

- Till the soil and then plant a bunch of different seeds and plants.

- Join a CSA in case you can't keep up on the garden this year

- Have a baby

- Buy a dairy cow

- Get cooler-than-average temperatures and regular rainfall a couple times a week all the way into July...

- Refrain from weeding, hoeing, or other forms of cultivation.

What do you get?

Well... the pictures don't do it justice, but when the weeds start looking back at eye level, you know you're in a bad way:


See, what I'm actually doing is not neglecting my garden. Oh no. I'm embarking on an ambitious breeding program to create weed-tolerant garden crops. Yes, that is exactly what I'm doing. And also generating lots of biomass. And yeah, and some short-term carbon sequestration. It's aaaallll according to my plan...

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