Sluggo Bloggo

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.