Last weekend, after taking Paco for a late evening trip in the backyard, Charles came back in with a story of humungous worms virtually blanketing the yard. He told the story with an air of revulsion, particularly the bit about them sucking themselves back into their holes when you shone a flashlight on them.

I, of course, was a bit skeptical and needed to check this tale out for myself. So, putting on his boots (if his description was accurate, I didn’t want to accidentally step on one in *my* boots) I took the flashlight into the yard and started shining it around, looking for these monster jack-in-the-box worms.

It didn’t take me long to find one. And another. And about twenty more. They didn’t blanket the yard, but they would have made a mess of my boots (or more precisely Charles’ boots, I suppose) had I not taken careful steps.

And they were long – at least six to eight inches – but were of regular width so they actually looked kind of funny sprawled out in the grass.

And my reaction to all this: keep searching them out. It was kind of interesting to watch them retreat into their holes when the light shone on them, some quickly, some slowly (some actually didn’t move at all).

But, as Charles had commented when he came in, I too was thankful that Paco had not spotted them when he was out. He had a bit of a … problem …. with them when he was younger. And with worms that size, who knows what would have happened.