Snails

My garden seems overrun with snails, even more so than usual. This is where Kieron comes to the rescue. He trots around picking them up and lobbing them over the wall at the back of the garden. He refuses to crush them so settles for the option of re-homing them. However this involves checking no-one is in the garden that backs onto ours prior to throwing them.
I read somewhere that snails and slugs automatically go back to the garden they originated from so Kieron and I discussed the feasibility of painting a few on their shells to see if they ever returned. Luckily I managed to talk him out of it as I had visions of having to patrol the garden, searching for the return of the prodigal snails. At one point we set beer traps, much to Kieron's amusement at the thought of drunk slugs and snails. What neither of us liked was emptying them so we reverted to annoying the neighbours (who we weren't overly keen on anyway).
Sometimes Kieron tries to adopt one, giving it a name and feeding it choice leaves as it slimes its way along the garden path. "Come on darling, come to your Kieron" is his cajoling request. Unfortunately, something always sidetracks him and in his eagerness to eat/ climb on the shed/ go to the ice cream van, Kieron nearly always manages to stand on the snail by accident, thus relegating it to the status of a slug. Apologies are said and off he goes to adopt a different one.
So today, I sprinkled slug pellets and put down grit. I gingerly picked up snails and threw them over the wall and I missed my little boy.