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Have had to cut the periwinkles back, around the shed, coz a king brown snake is hanging around the path, and can be hard to see. Gotta avoid stepping on it in thongs!Little (cute!) wandering baby redbacks are moving into their permanent positions in the garage for the summer, now, as the heat increases. Grrrrrr! What a pity they'll soon grow into big and cranky black widows!!!!!
It's damper, this spring, and we've actually got a few slugs and snails around, for the first time in years and years!!!!! The long 10-yr drought seemed to kill them all off! But some must've stayed alive, somehow, somewhere. Maybe low down in crevices in the earth, perhaps? I know snails go into hibernation, with that little door of foam they make for their shells. But what does a slug abide in, during years and years of drought???!!! Anyway, I'm glad to see slugs and snails returning to their necessary place in the scheme of things!!!!!
I once, twenty years ago, stayed up all night watching two giant leopard slugs in coital embrace. A rather slow-motion but, nevertheless, poetic affair, with the two participants entwined in a sort of romantic love-knot--I suppose it would be called....
Tiny, baby snails, with transparent shells, are fun. If you hold one up, on a piece of glass, in front of a bedlamp--not close enough to burn it, mind you!--you can see it's little heart beatin', all with the naked eye. Lots of fun, and a nice natural science lesson for children.
Walking around a large garden, like ours, one often comes upon old empty snail shells that may even be several years old. I have reasoned that such shells could be carefully pierced and threaded as rattly Halloween necklaces--for those who are so inclined to celebrate in that (ghoulish!) way. The shells could even be lacquered with a bit of nail varnish to shine them up a bit, again.
Sow Thistle in Winter Bloom
Lately I spend a lot of time, on a place called The Moor, blowing thistledown into the wind. I have come to the final realisation that all the stars on Merlin's robe and cap were, originally, thistledown.
It's great fun blowing thistledown, and I am, by now, quite champion at it. I figure, too, that every thistle needs as much opportunity as possible to scatter itself far and wide, so I like to help facilitate this. Sow Thistle are a particular favourite of mine, but I don't mind Cat's Tails, either. There are some little native daisies that have tiny ''clocks'', so I do those as well--if it pleases and suits me; but, of course, as I'm running about, I'm more likely to grab the thistles nearest to hand, rather than those way down low on the ground. I do enjoy Dandelions, and you do see some here in the non-drought years, but it's too dry for them at present. Scotch Thistle are fun, but you see them more on the cooler and wetter Tablelands, too. They are far too prickly to handle, anyway. I have been known to blow Wild Salsify clocks on the banks at Cotton's Weir. Compass Plant can be fun, but they tend to be tougher to break off, as well as a bit prickly, too. Still, the Sow Thistles are rather aphidy, lately, and I do feel a little guilty for disturbing the insects' sticky lifestyle.
