[Yeah, I probably should have named this post "Pellets, and slugs, and butts, oh my!" but I was trying to Keep It Simple!]

I love nature, and as most people know, one of nature's laws is that owls eat rodents. But the former don't do a good job of digesting the bones and the hair of the latter; once their digestive juices have extracted what they need, they regurgitate the remains in the form of owl pellets. I've long had owls nesting in my yard, and Coco will occasionally find one and play around with it until I take it away from her in disgust. When this happened the other day, I thought it belonged in the ashtray along with the remains of a recent visitor's butt.

No product placement message intended there. Just a telemarketing promotional ashtray from the 1970s when this was a freer (though arguably not more esthetically pleasing) country.

Hey, they're both biodegradable products of nature, aren't they? Hmm.... Well, maybe not the filter. I guess as nature's leftovers go, the owl pellet is more natural. More, um, wholesome.

Like this critter that was crawling across the porch this morning within a few feet of the telemarketing ashtray.

It would never have crawled into the ashtray, though, because slugs hate butts!

For a very good reason, too.

Tobacco kills slugs!

AFTERTHOUGHT: Owl pellets should never be confused with slug pellets. The former are natural and wholesome, while the latter are unnatural and deadly!