Slow Observations
Get a snail and enjoy the slow lane
I don’t write for a living or really for much else. Just for fun and when I have the time. It’s nothing special, but that’s all right. Sometimes you get so caught up in life that you forget to slow down. I know a lot of people say that or some form of it. But I have advice.
Get a snail.
When I was about 8 years old I had some pond snails. I recreated their habitat in a container with holes. They had rocks, water, and algae. Eventually, I noticed the rocks covered in eggs. When they hatched and the babies got bigger, I released them back into the area I found them. Finding a beautiful thriving snail community in a small corner of the lake on the property. The fish were enthused as well, and I noticed a change while fishing as well. What I had done was added a larger food source for the lake creatures and in turn, was quite pleased with the outcome. My snail breeding days didn’t last long as my parents got tired of all the baby snails waiting for release. It was a cycle. Sometimes I still see that little snail colony thriving in a small corner of the lake and feel a bit proud.
At 12 years old, I found a common garden snail shell in a ditch in Arrow Rock, Missouri. I picked it up and saved it, thinking it was cool. I noticed some ‘dirt’ in the shell and thought I’d pop it in some warm water to get it loose and clean it out. I went back later to check it, and a snail was there! This begins my story of Stanley. Who I had for 5 years. He taught me a lot about small things. Taking life as it comes. He had a 10-gallon tank to roam around, and on nice days we would go out to the yard and hang out. He would check out flowers and other plants, climb tree trunks, and try some new delicacies. He was my show and tell for a science project, and I even wrote a script and made a video, Steve Irwin style. Imagine that! He lived for 5 years, happy and healthy. Until one day, he never came out of his shell. I waited for weeks, hoping he was just in a deep sleep. But I knew it was time to bury him. I set him in a pot on the front porch where the sun rises so perfectly. I planted some Virginia Bluebells in that pot so they would come back each year. He’s still there, on the front porch under those bluebells.
Nelson is my most recent snail. He’s an amber snail. Which are prone to this ‘zombie snail’ parasite. (Don’t look it up, but also… look it up.) Nelson wasn’t the first Amber Snail. Horatio was my first one. Then my mom brought me 4 more. Bligh, Barrington, Honey, and Cook. They have all since ‘scooted on’ as ambers only live 2 years, and I’m not sure how old they were when I got them. Horatio was the last to go, and he’s been buried in with a pothos plant and an amethyst near him. Before they all left their little earthly snail bodies, they had babies. 2 made it. Nelson and Bitty. Bitty never grew after a while and ended up ‘scooting on’ as well. I’m left with Nelson.
Nelson never seems to sleep. He travels with me around the house and does laps while I work. He gets the morning sun and a nice little mist each morning. He was the size of the end of a pin when I spotted him and he’s grown full size since December 2020. He’s a peppy little thing and LOVES baby carrots, just like Horatio. He’s always moving, crawling, climbing. He loves to make some daring moves from the plant to the top of his habitat, stretching as far as he can up UP UP — GOT IT! and he’s off, zooming back down to do it again.
There’s so much beauty in small things. As an attempted gardener, I see the destruction they can cause. But you go little snails! They have a hard life in nature as it is. Predators are everywhere. As I know it is nature’s way, I still have a soft spot for these little molluscs.
You’ll find yourself watching them for long periods, and you’ll feel relaxed. Seeing how they just live is amazing. Snails are not gross… they are creatures that live among us. They can be here to teach us a lesson.
So go get yourself a snail and pamper it. Fresh veggies galore, baths and q-tip shell scrubs. All the things you can do to make the habitat a nice, safe, fun little home.
Be kind to creatures BIG, small, and even itty bitty.
