snails

We've been having crazy weather lately, of the very hot and very sunny variety. Not that I'm complaining, with the memory of the February blah's still lurking around, I certainly appreciate the sun. But I'm not so good with the heat. Also, its hard to believe that its here to stay. I'm skeptical in a Canadian way about the weather. Like when its nice, I'm always thinking, in the back of my mind "oh, this can't last". And it is Ontario after all, so you get cold winter, blah gross late winter, two weeks of really nice spring, and then three months of sweltering humidity, followed by a very short nice fall, and then back to the nasty cold winter. Not that I'm complaining (she mutters in a sarcastically dry manner).

I took these pictures at the beginning of the month, and just never got around to posting them, but I found them tonight while I was sifting through my computer folders, and they are just too good to leave floating around on my desktop. It was before the weather got so hot, and it was a cool, rainy morning. What my mom would call 'a misty, moisty morning'.

 

It was a Saturday and we were out early, and it was dewy and misty and grey, and rather lovely. We went in search of Hubs, who was out in the old paddock cleaning up a bit before my dad came over with the tractor to do some mowing.

We always enjoy our time outside, there are hills to climb and run down screaming, sticks and rocks to find, dandelions to pick. And now and again there are new creatures to find. 

Despite the fact that I explained that a snail is at home anywhere, since he lives in the shell that he carries on his back, the little Dude insisted that this particular snail needed to come and live in his sandbox.

With great haste we headed off to the backyard.

As mentioned before the Little Dude loves bugs, slugs and all things creepy and crawley. He's not really squeamish about anything. See how far out Mr. Snail is sticking his neck, in order to ascertain why he was hurtling through the air in the hands of a giant child, no doubt. This didn't gross L.D. out at all. I, on the other hand, am a 'looker' not 'picker uppper'. Creepy crawlies don't make me recoil in horror, but at the same time, I'm not dying to carry around a handful of slugs. The Little Dude will pick up pretty much anything. And of course, he does not know his own toddler strength, so he has a tendency to over-squeeze, unless carefully supervised. We've had a number of disagreements over slugs vis a vis, how tightly they should be held, and at what point they should be put back down before the shuffle off this mortal coil. Ahem. Also, he's not really concerned about hygiene. For example, we went out the the sandbox the other day to find something white on one of his toy trucks. We disagreed about what that might be.

Him: Dat white stuff dere!

Me: Yes it is. That's bird poop, don't touch it please.

Him: Dat not bird poop!

Me: Yes it is.

Him: I want to touch dat!

Me: Please don't touch that. 

Him: Want to touch it!

Me: You can't.

Him: Why I not touch dat?

Me: Because its bird poop.

Him: Dat NOT bird poop.

Me: sigh.

No matter how I tried to tell him it was bird poop, he just wouldn't believe me. But I digress.

So he obviously was not shy about picking up this snail. And Mr Snail wasn't shy either. Though they were both a bit surprised.

  He did manage to make it safely (and unsqueezed) to his new home at the edge of the sandbox.

Isn't he pretty? Not flashy and colourful or anything like that, but so perfect and simple. 

 

As you can see in the video, he was closely, though somewhat briefly scrutinized. And even though L.D. went off in search of Daddy at the end of the clip, he did return several times over the next few minutes to mark the snail's progress along the sandbox's edge.

Which, interestingly enough was not as slow as you'd think. A snails pace is a pretty good clip, especially if you consider it proportionate to his size. If I was all maths-y and smart I'd go out on the next rainy day and time a snail as he slimed along and then do some fancy equations to figure out how fast he would be going if he were the size of an average person. Or if I had more time this evening I'd go and find that somewhere on the internet. But I should already be in bed, so I'll just have to live without knowing. Oh, and if you are a math-nerd nature lover check out this video that shows how mathematical equations and nature are related. Its quite lovely.

Goodbye mister snail. 

Comments

[Karen]

Redheads and heat are not a great mix. I'm with you on that one! Great snail shots btw.

[Marcia Van Drunen]

I particularly love the last pic with the snail "looking" over the edge :)