Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig southslope.net. NS
Answer
southslope.net. 5 NS ns2.southslope.net.
southslope.net. 5 NS ns1.southslope.net.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
ns1.southslope.net. 5 A 198.49.62.202
ns2.southslope.net. 5 A 108.160.239.162
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0