If you’;re close enough to dump salt on a bird’;s tail, you’;re close enough to use your hands! And what exactly is the salt supposed to do?

Salt is a good way to get rid of snails and slugs, though. It kills them by rapid dehydration. In fact, you can watch them sputter and dissolve right before your very eyes. Alas, the salt changes the salinity of your garden, so it is not suggested for pest control on soil. But if the critters slime their way up onto the sidewalk, sprinkle away.

Which brings up the old joke about a guy who comes home from work one night and finds a snail crawling on his newspaper. He picks up the snail and lobs it across the street, then takes his paper and goes inside. Three months later there’;s a knock at his door. The guy opens the door, and the snail says, “What was that all about?”