|
|
|
hammerheaded worm
Sunday, September 27 2009
Rain fell for much of the day, complicating my work on the outhouse crapatorium. It's dangerous to operate 120 volt drilling equipment outside in a downpour, but at what level of rain is it safe to run such equipment? For me, that answer was "a medium drizzle." I initially tried avoiding 120 volt tools, but none of my battery-powered drills were up to the task of drilling 3/8 inch holes with a spade bit eight inches into two four by fours in preparation for a lag bolt. Between passing rain clouds, I managed to attach three large four-by-four horizontals between the corner pillars of the outhouse. These will support some of the internal structures of the outhouse, such as the place where one will sit down and initiate the movement of bowels.
After dark, I went down to the greenhouse and noted all sorts of creatures crawling over the south-facing glass, which was covered with a film of water from the day's rain. One was a brownish tree frog a little larger than my thumbnail who kept his belly pressed firmly to the glass. There were also four Redback Salamanders, a couple slugs, and a smattering of centipedes. Most interesting of all was a four or five inch worm with a peculiar flatten head that flared out on either side in a manner vaguely suggesting a hammerhead. Otherwise the worm was unsegmented and light brown in color, with a single dark dorsal stripe. An internet search for "hammerhead worm" turned up information about the so-called Land Planarian, an exotic predatory worm native to Asia. It could have arrived at the greenhouse site either with the truck loads of soil trucked in to make the septic system's leech field back in the mid-1990s or it might have come with the buckets of topsoil I've been looting from the Esopus Creek levee.
A salamander on the greenhouse glass tonight.
Inside the greenhouse tonight.
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?090927 feedback
previous | next |
