20 July 2013 - Rethinking snails

For years snails have been the bane of my little gardener's heart. I have smashed, baited, crushed and otherwise killed many many of those shelled eating machines. 

Quick segue: when Robin was here in May, we were weeding the front flower bed. Any snails that showed up I merely tossed into the street. You can imagine my shock and surprise when three women joggers stopped in front of the house and one of the women said, "Oh,  look a baby snail! What is it doing in the road?" She picked it up walked into the yard and set it next to a rock surrounded by long grass. "You'll be safe here," she said. Then they continued jogging up the hill. 

Fast forward a couple weeks. I was on the porch watering the pots and noticed a snail on a planter working his way over a corner. 

 

All I could think of while watching him very slowly making his way over the corner was A.A. Milne's poem: 

The Four Friends

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goat's new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.

I sat crouched over my heels, hose in hand and watched as he reached the end of his brick. It took quite some time. We have had very few snails this year, probably because of the overly early hot spell. 

Two days later, I was walking across the front lawn and nearly stepped on this guy making his way through the grass. Once again I stopped to watch. I got a little more up close and personal with this one. I hadn't really given it much thought before, but watching (and annoying) this snail made me realize that the eye stalks are completely retractable.  Something like pulling off a pair of latex gloves and having the fingers being completely inside out. Makes you wonder what they see when their eyes are inside. His eyes were blue.

Here I annoyed him and he retracted his eyestalks and his olfactory tentacles. He looks like an octopus.

 After a minute or two he decided to see if it was safe and stuck his eye stalk out just the tiniest bit.

He takes a good look around, and extends both eyestalks then starts pushing out the olfactory tentacles. It was a pretty interesting morning.

I still don't like them eating their way through my yard, but I may rethink my immediate reflex to stomp them flat.