I wonder if a perfect Paradise would even be a good thing. I often have to remind myself to look, really look, at the beauty around me instead of becoming so used to it that I forget to appreciate the fact that the sun shines here even when it’s raining, turning every leaf and flower into a tiny shimmering mirror, and even the darkest clouds are luminous around the edges.
No snakes in Hawaii is another bonus (except for a tiny brown snake that lives in the soil, doesn’t bite, and is smaller than an earthworm).
But we have bad things here too.
Centipedes are beautifully iridescent creatures that do their best to stay out of your way, but if you happen to step on one, or one crawls into your shoes or clothes and feels trapped when you put yourself in there with them, their sting is painful and toxic enough to send you to the ER. The other day, one crawled across my journal as I was writing in it. I’m glad it wasn’t on my laptop, because I threw that journal across the room. But the fast-moving centipede must have been clairvoyant, because I had barely begun to leap hysterically to my feet when it dropped onto the couch and scurried between the cushions. I turned that couch over and tore it apart, but the creature had disappeared.
We have a new couch now.
(TBH, we had ordered a new couch months ago and it only arrived after the centipede scare, but I couldn’t resist adding that punch line.)
Invasive giant African snails and slugs the size of your thumb carry rat-lungworm disease, which causes all sorts of anguish including paralysis, so we keep jars of salted water handy so we can minimize the danger and sort-of-safely grow our own fruits and vegetables. (The snails are kind-of cute, and I do need to spend more time writing, but paralysis isn’t the answer.)
Cane toads are even worse, and they have turned me into a heartless toad-murderer. I don’t even feel bad about it because:
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Cane toads are an invasive species.
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Their skin secretes a poison that can kill a dog.
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If a cane toad gets in the dogs’ outdoor water bowl (or pond or puddle) the seepage from their skin will poison the water.
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If a cane toad lays eggs in a body of water, the eggs will poison the water.
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Also, though it isn’t cause for toadicide, cane toads are big and scary.
At first, I tried to ignore the dinosaur-sized cane toads in our yard. But one day not too long ago, Georgia’s snout swelled up to alarming proportions, and an online search yielded results that implicated cane toads as a likely culprit. So, now I’m dedicated to keeping these poisonous toads out of our yard.
After a series of awkward attempts that only made the toads angry and left them and me both traumatized, I developed a method:
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Invert a gallon Ziplock bag over your dominant hand.
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Sneak up on the toad, holding a flashlight. (They only come out at night.)
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Grab the toad from behind with your bag-covered hand, pull the bag up over the squirming struggling toad, and zip the bag. (If you use the bag the wrong way around so it doesn’t zip, you’ve got a problem, so don’t do that.
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Put the toad in the freezer for at least two days (apparently they’re hardy little buggers) then dispose of the frozen toad on the next trash run (we don’t have trash pickup here and have to take our trash to the transfer station ourselves).
Three toads ago, I caught one that really scared me. He was BIG, so big that he didn’t fit in my hand. I could only grab his back and squeeze it hard enough to keep him from escaping, which he was valiantly trying to do. Just approaching him scared me–he probably weighed about two pounds. He turned toward me as I got close, and kept turning to face me as I moved, so I couldn’t grab him from behind. Cane toads have mean-looking eyes, and the expression on his face said, “I’m going to launch my bad self at your face and spit poison into your eyes.”
I froze that toad, but I had nightmares about it for days.
So yeah, bad things are here too (brought here by people, of course). But just a few minutes ago, it started raining and the sun never dimmed, and now everything is sparking like God’s Disco Ball.
Tonight I’ll be on the hunt again, doing my best to eradicate the toads and snails and slugs that mostly come out at night. But today, this place looks a lot like Paradise.
