Darkoshi

A couple weeks ago there was a lizard in the garage, in one of the round plastic bins. I thought maybe it had gotten stuck there, not being able to climb back up the walls of the bin. So I took it outside. But it behaved oddly. It didn't scurry off, and it moved its body oddly. The next day, it was still in nearly the same spot, dead.

Later, it occurred to me that maybe it had eaten some of the roach bait/poison I had put in the garage. Or maybe it had eaten a roach which had eaten the poison. That made me feel bad.

Last week, while using the trimmer to mow the lawn, I accidentally hit a cockroach. That made me feel bad too. It looked like I cut its head open. I didn't know whether I should stomp on it to put it out of its misery, or if that would make it worse. I never know.

There seem to be a lot of bugs scurrying around in the grass when I'm mowing, lately. Maybe because of all the rain. I've been having to mow the yard each and every week.

I have a new trimmer with a lithium battery which works much better than my old trimmer with the nickel-cadmium batteries. The old batteries took a long time to charge, and lost their charge pretty quickly. The new batteries charge in under an hour, and the new trimmer has a speed setting. At first I thought it was best to keep it on the lowest setting, so that the battery would last longest. But then I realized that using a higher speed lets you mow faster. You can swing the trimmer back and forth faster, whereas with a lower speed, you have to move slower in order to cut the same amount of grass. I was beginning to enjoy the higher speed settings, as I could get the same amount of grass mowed in less time. But then I hit that roach. And then I thought, maybe at a lower speed, the line would be less dangerous. Or maybe, with me moving more slowly on the lower setting, the bugs would have more time to hear me coming and to get out of my way.

I decided not to put roach bait in the garage anymore. It's too cruel. The bugs out there don't bother me much. It's not that big a deal to have to vacuum up their mess once in a while, compared to the alternatives.

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's
why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less
harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm
causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So
it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm. -Alice Walker, author
(b. 1944)

from AWAD