Pretty Little Pink Cannibal!

  I was looking back through a few of my older photographs and came across one of a snail.  Ever since I was a tyke, I had been told that the pretty pinks shells I would find were from a "garden snail".  Maybe?  But not exactly.  The empty shells were the remains of a quite different snail with a much darker side.  Garden snails munch on plants and plant matter.  They are the bane of gardeners everywhere.  The snails, along with slugs, have been the driving force behind many methods of eradication.  Home remedies, chemicals, salts...everything imaginable has come forth as a "cure" of the snail curse.  Well...there is no need for that at all.  Those methods are doing nothing more than killing the very savior of your plants.  The eradication methods also kill the snail with the pretty pink shells.  Not good if you are a gardener.

  You see, the pink shells are from the Rosy Wolfsnail.  While alive, the shell and snail look more rosy brown than pink but once the shell is empty and dry, it is rather lovely.  The reputation of the snail?  Not so lovely among other snails.  A Rosy Wolfsnail actually dines upon other snails.  It follows the slime trail of snails and slugs and chows down on them.  It is indiscriminate in its choice of dinner as it will even cannibalize its own type given a half of chance.  The Rosy Wolfsnail eats smaller snails whole but will rip a larger one from its shell.  By putting out "snail/slug" bait or poison, you also kill the Rosy Wolfsnail and it is doing its best to help you.  

  The next time you find a Rosy Wolfsnail make sure to leave it in the garden and make sure to thank it for a job well done!  I am pondering if, once the old dog is well, we should go on a great snail search and rehome those babies right in the veggie garden!  

Using Tools

  As humans we use tools to our advantage.  There is not a day that goes by that we are not utilizing a tool of some sort.  While most think of tools only in means of carpenter or mechanic use, pencils, eating utensils, light switches, phones, safety pins, needles, paint brushes...you name it. If it makes life easier for you...its a tool.  We never give these things (and our ability to use them) a second thought. It comes naturally.
  
  Critters use tools as well.  Maybe they are not as adept as we are but there are a good many animals that make use of tools.  The otter uses stones to crack shells.  The Green Heron smashes fiddler crabs to use as bait.  Raccoons will actually use a shell to dip water.  All are rather inventive methods and are definitely interesting to watch.  

  This afternoon, a hike took me far back around the peach orchard and into the little clearing near a huge magnolia tree.  An unusual tapping noise made me stop in my tracks.  Tap, tap, tap.  The noise was slightly metallic yet had a distinct cracking sound to it.  Stepping softly on the damp leaves, I eased toward the sound.  Between the magnolia tree and the pump shed is where Mark keeps Big Red, his tractor, parked.  That tapping was coming from his tractor!  Ok, so tractors are not supposed to tap.  I eased closer.

  A small brown bird was busy working.  Tap, tap, tap.  What in the world??  As I took one step nearer the bird, it flew to the magnolia tree. Ok, Little Wood Thrush, what had you so interested in on that big machine?  On cue, the bird dropped the remnants of its prize.  Aha!  So, you were using the tractor as a tool!

  The small bird usually dines upon insects but with most of those being far under cover for the winter, the Wood Thrush had a change in diet. The remnant piece was the shell from a garden snail.  When I picked up the shell, it was empty.  The bird had used the metal of the tractor hood as a cracking device for the shell.  After making one crack, it was easy for the bird to pick out pieces of the shell to get to the snail inside.  That is one smart bird!  I guess a snail will make a fine meal when you are hungry and I guess a tractor is a great tool for birds as well as humans. 

Appearances Can Be Deceiving!

  "Appearances can often be deceiving."   "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."  "Don't judge a book by its cover."  We have all heard and even said these fine quotes but do we believe them?  Do we listen to the advice given in them or are we quick to let our eye fool our brain? Sometimes I wonder.

 Today while working in the garden, I came across a vicious beast.  Had this critter been larger, I would have been terrified!  But, thankfully, the beast was tiny....and cute.  It is only vicious because it relentlessly attacks my plants.  I found a land snail which I decided definitely needed to be photographed.  One thing led to another and the snail got quite the closeup!    That is when I realized that things might appear differently when viewed from an unusual perspective.  Our eyes somehow deceive our brain.  The brain can easily be convinced to accept appearances over logic.

  The closeup of the snail's face(?) made think it was some weird critter that I might find beneath the murky waters of the Bayou.  The photograph almost made the thing seem like some giant octopus (not that I would find an octopus in the Bayou as he would be quite the wayward critter!).  Anyway, the two inch long, dark pink shell housed a slimy critter that could stretch out for a good five inches! It was not a giant octopus trying to attack me in the garden!  It was trying to escape my presence by scooting itself across a board.  As it inched along, it left behind a goodly amount of slime.  Poor little guy!  If it kept this up, it would be all slimed out in no time so I toted it down behind the canebrake where it could live in peace.  (Yes, I did feel sorry for a snail.)  

  Still when you view the photographs, try to imagine if you did not know the identity of the critter.  Those eyes protruding out on stems, that slimy, orangish face, those tentacles reaching out at all angles...yep, easy to let the imagination run wild.  The eye was convincing the brain that things were somehow different. MONSTERS ARE ON THE LOOSE IN MY GARDEN!  LAND OCTOPUSES ARE ON THE RAMPAGE!  Oh....I found a snail.

Its ALIVE!

Ok, we are definitely over the recent bout of frigid weather here on the Bayou.  Today the temperature soared to seventy degrees and with that I needed to be outside!  One of the chores that needed tending was to clean the birdbath.  I had noticed during the cold that the water, although frozen solid, had a brownish color.  I figured since I would not like to drink that then my bird friends should not be expected to like it either. During the duration of the freeze, I had placed a pan of fresh water out each day for their partaking but now I could go back to filling the bath.  While the water was one big chunk of ice, I noticed several snails caught up in the middle.  Obviously, they were in the birdbath and forgot to find a safer place when the temperature dropped into the teens.  Poor little guys!  Yep, I felt sorry for a snail!

A couple of days after the inclement weather spurt, that ice started to melt.  Lo and behold!  Those snails were not dead!  As soon as they were free from the ice, those rascals took to munching the algae growing in the bath!  Land sake's alive!  Who would have ever guessed that?  Not me.  I watched as those two acted as if nothing at all had happened to them.  Keep munching, little snails, keep munching!

The ability of the tiny snail to withstand such conditions intrigued me.  How in the world did something that is mostly water survive being frozen solid?  I picked up one of the snails and looked for any signs of trauma but found nary a blemish....or at least what might look like a blemish on a slimy critter.  I would have thought that the snail would have burst like a capped water bottle placed in the freezer.  Sometimes nature has it together.  Perhaps we should do a bit more observing of things in nature.  We might just come across something quite useful.  If scientists could harness the idea of what keeps these snails from freezing, the world might benefit greatly.  Just a thought after coming out of a deep freeze that gripped most of the nation.

Topsy-turvy!

Sometimes I work hard..and sometimes I work hard at nothing. Today, I did both! The springlike weather beckoned me to the garden early this morning with the promise of a productive day. I weeded, fertilized, transplanted, pruned, planted and watered. Then I went to work! Actually, after doing all of the above, I had the fun job of retraining the blackberry vines on the fenceline. They are all putting on buds and if I don't get this done now..well..I just won't get it done this entire summer! Even though I had pruned them back tremendously this winter, they have sprouted new shoots everywhere creating a big, hairy wall of thorns! This was not the easiest of tasks as the aforementioned thorns have a way of biting into flesh and leaving nasty scratches. Still, it needed to be done, so I worked away for an hour or so...then I had enough! Let the vines be free! Let them take over the garden! Let them be until the next time I am ambitious enough to attempt this!

After the blackberry struggle, I became totally enthralled by a small critter. I had noticed Ms Put, the cat, batting at something in the mulch. Thinking she had cornered another lizard, I set out to rescue the poor creature before it was mortally wounded and became breakfast. For being such an old cat, this feline can still hunt rather well and has no fear of animals twice her size. Thank goodness whatever she had this time was rather small. As I neared, she skittered away and left me staring at the ground. It took a few minutes for the old eyes to focus on the critter in the midst of the mulch. There it was..a poor garden snail trying its best to right itself after being flipped upside down by a giant furball. It almost seemed to be an impossible feat as the pink shell appeared to be far to heavy for the snail to flip. Try as he might, he was not getting very far. Poor little, topsy-turvy snail!

I watched as it strove to upright itself and in horror realized that the poor thing was being attacked by a single ant..or perhaps the single ant was being "en-slimed" by the snail. Either way, I think the snail received notice that the ant was present because suddenly with a jerk (as much as a snail can jerk) it withdrew into its shell. I could not stand to see the little fellow in pain so I lifted him from the mulch and sat him in a little puddle of water. This seemed to relieve its agony a bit. Soon, it started out of the shell again..and since this is not necessarily a snail that would do well in water, I moved it to the flower garden. There it can happily munch on my bulbs and I can blame it on the slugs! It is a wondrous thing that snails are so readily accepted whereas slugs are bane to a gardener's bliss!