Slimy. Gross. Yucky. Those are just three words that quickly come to mind when I think about slugs, those slithering, nocturnal gastropods that can ravage everything from hostas to strawberries while we sleep. And yet, while there’s no getting around the fact that they’re both disgusting and destructive, they’re also fascinating creatures. Really they are.

At a press conference in Mexico City last January, scientists cheered when the official eastern monarch butterfly population was announced. And with good reason: The numbers were an impressive 144% increase over the previous year, and the highest recorded since 2006. At the same time, however, it was announced that the California western monarch population had declined by a stunning 86%. So what gives?

I was hiking with my five-year-old grandson not too long ago, and we came upon a large batch of poison ivy. “Leaves of three, let it be,” I said, to which he replied, “Huh?” I’m pretty sure I had the same puzzled look on my face when my grandfather said the same thing to me 60 years ago. But you’re never too young to learn how to recognize poison ivy, and you’re never too old to learn how to get rid of it.