Mother Nature, 1, Jim, 0.

You can't defeat Mother Nature! She always bests you in the end! The pianist and I came back from a Scottish holiday of three weeks of beautiful weather, to the wet coast. We have had almost a solid month of rain here while we were away. I put my dahlias in early before we left for Scotland. Those that have not rotted in waterlogged ground have been beset by a monumental attack of slugs and appear as a sorry lot, stripped of leaf and revealing tiny, bare, gelatinous stalks, some eaten to ground level. Moreover there is a epidemic of feral bunnies now on Lotus Island. Dumped by would be pet owners that couldn't cope and couldn't euthanize! They also enjoy eating the few dahlias that have survived the slug assault. Every morning I get up in the rain at 7 am and armed with my scissors, I chop the night-shift slugs in half. I may be winning but it's touch and go and Mother Nature has me on the floor in an arm lock at the moment. Well, it's not that my life depends on great dahlias. I feel sorry for the strawberry farms since they will be facing a rotted crop if it doesn't stop soon, and they make a living at it. I'm just another dilettante! Still I have an ace in the hand for Mother Nature . I potted up about 50 dahlias for a reserve so, if the monsoon stops, and the slugs are conquered, and my neighbor shoots the bunnies as he has threatened to do, I may rise from the floor and survive the old girl again, after a fashion!