After a night of rain, my son usually rushes outside to see if any snails came out. He found this one yesterday morning on our front walkway. He crouched there and watched it for about fifteen minutes, then rushed inside to tell me all the cute things the snail did.
Photos taken March 28th, 2013
You may also enjoy this post:Â Search for Snails
I like snails, and find them very interesting. I also have a garden, and find IT very interesting. You may see where I’m going with this. Although I don’t mind sharing some of our produce with the neighborhood critters, flat-out infestations can be fairly devastating. I can’t, however, bring myself to kill or poison the things outright. So I relocate them. Any not actually IN the garden at any given moment are given a pass. Those munching on my veggies are plucked off, and relocated (at high velocity) to the park across the street. I’m not sure how many survive the flight (or the landing, really), but any that don’t are either snapped up by the hooded crows and magpies or eaten at night by the hedgehogs. I hid this from they boys for as long as I could, but in the end I had to try to explain that although snails are very cool, when they eat your lettuce they must be firmly reprimanded. It’s tough to outline the precise reasons why sometimes we watch in wonder as snails crawl across the garden wall, and why sometimes we hurl them angrily across the street.
LikeLike
🙂 We have the same issues with spiders in the house. When my husband is around, he patiently (and bravely) carries the spiders outside, but it freaks me out too much. I just can’t pick them up… one of my “issues”. So my son has learned that insects and spiders don’t belong IN the home, but outside. Outside, good. Inside, bad. Though, as I think you know from my last response to you about Charlotte’s Web that I’m also OK with co-existing with a spider or two in the corner of a window. I’m sure my son finds it all quite confusing. As for snails eating our garden, the snails never had a chance… the birds beat them to it!
LikeLike
Beautiful moment you captured there! I’m so curious to see how my little guy would react to a snail…will keep this in mind once we reach the “real” Seattle spring (68 degree forecast this weekend!)
LikeLike
Thanks! Enjoy the warm weather this weekend! It was in the 70s down here in the SF Bay Area today, and if felt downright tropical (it’s all relative). I wore a skirt today and felt totally warm. Our forecast for tomorrow is rain. More snail watching opportunities. 🙂
LikeLike
I enjoy watching snails too!
LikeLike
Yep, I do, too. 🙂
LikeLike
Ah, that glorious age that, with the right preparation, can be fascinated by snails. At that age one of my sons had similar feelings for earth worms.
LikeLike
I’ll have to try earth worms again. They are hit and miss with my son. Sometimes he’s fascinated. At other times, he’s disgusted. But he always feels so sad for them when they are coming out of the grass after the rains.
LikeLike
Snail watching healthier than television.
LikeLike
So true!
LikeLike
The Tangled Trail 
Please Comment