To my mind, there are two great ways to spend rainy days with kids: tucked away indoors with an excess of books and quilts, or navigating the drippy wilderness looking for foul-weather creatures. My family’s wilderness happens to be an urban landscape, but if one looks closely, there’s still a wealth of wildlife to be found. Specifically, a wealth of snails.
Call me a tomboy. Call me a geek. Call me Ishmael, I don’t care. Just don’t call me squeamish. I took my five-year-old and my iPhone on an epic snail hunt this weekend, and I do mean epic; I made over fifty short videos of the snails and other creepy creatures we encountered during our walk! After some judicious editing, I was able to piece the best clips together into a brief video montage of our sticking, slipping, skittering finds.
The following video includes a few facts about snails, instructions for a simple snail terrarium, and some very exciting close-up footage of a snail eating and sliming its way up the glass – you can see the muscles in its foot rippling as it goes!
Those are some impressive snails. I don’t think we get them as big in my garden!
We seem to have a thriving population here – they really have a thing for those little purple flowers, and my neighborhood is full of them.
That was very cool! Your snails are prettier than the ones in my Australian garden. My favourite thing was the excitement and love of learning your son shows!
That was my favorite part, too!