Midnight Mutterings | Snails

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES |||

A few days ago I invited myself to join a neighbor (you know who you are) who was walking her dog on Obstruction Pass Rd.

As we passed the county dock heading east up the hill, I saw a tiny yellow snail a couple of feet from the right side of the road beginning her crossing. Understanding her peril, I picked her up to save her from vehicle tires. Even though there isn’t much traffic, I could hear an approaching truck heading our way. And snails are not fleet of foot, or so we believe.

She (I’m calling her ‘she’ here even though I know snails are hermaphroditic because she was so feminine: her shell hardly larger than my thumbnail) and beautiful in her yellow and black outfit. What was unexpected was that she did not (literally) recoil. Instead, she stretched out, waving herself in the air, barely over an inch long. Her pale body glistened in the sunlight, antenna alert as she waved her soft body. I suppose snails, and all hermaphrodites are literally ‘it’s.’ Being gender appropriate with snails is difficult, at best.

I was mesmerized. She seemed completely at ease in her situation, and so strong, her resisting gravity as she seemed to check out her situation which was completely out of her control.

I’ve never been particularly interested in snails. Of the non-mammalian/avian critters of my childhood, I was better acquainted with frogs, toads, salamanders, lizards (especially the ones that abandoned their tails escaping my small fingers), turtles and tortoises. There must have been snails, but I don’t recall any in particular.

It was after I moved West Coast that I encountered snails and slugs in a meaningful way. They were huge and seemed determined to decimate my early attempts at gardening. Slugs in California seemed to be inordinately attracted to my children’s small, bare toes to my own discomfort.

Finally on Orcas Island, I declared war on snails and slugs, going into into the garden, flashlight in my murderous paw, to dispatch slugs and snails completely without compassion. I’m quite ashamed now, of my murderous past, especially after my recent snail encounter. It also revealed my racism about the snail world. I never paid attention to the garden snails’ beauty, blinded, I assume, by competition for growing vegetables. I read somewhere that a snail can travel over a mile overnight. (Is that even possible?) So moving my competitors wasn’t practical.

Trying to save the yellow snail’s life, I placed her in the grass beside the road and we continued on our way. Then I remembered a book about turtles by Sy Montgomery, in which she describes people ‘rescuing’ turtles in roads in New England, putting them back on the roadside from which they came, further endangered them. Apparently, when creatures cross roads, they are headed somewhere for something, not just randomly wandering into danger. In the turtles’ case, they were heading for water, which they can sense. Is it different for snails? Was my snail headed for something and I simply put her into greater danger, made her journey more dangerous by extending it? After all, the ditch across the road contained water. Was my yellow snail beauty thirsty or dryer than she looked?

I first saw a yellow snail a few years ago in Bellingham, in my son’s garden. Or rather, in a photo he took of that snail. I have seen only a few on Orcas Island. In fact, I have seen fewer snails overall on Orcas lately. Is it the dry weather? My gardens gone to ruin with fewer delicious plants to fight over? Better weeds to hide in?

Back to the neighbor/dog walk. We walked farther, to the crest of the hill before turning back to retrace our steps. Then, there on the road was another tiny yellow snail. Not the same one: this one was much closer to the crest of the hill. I picked her up and she behaved the same way, stretching herself out in the delicate beauty. This time I did think to put her in the grass on the side of the road she was headed to.

Of course, I wish I had taken a photo of her. I’m still not used to the fact that the phone I carry is an instantly available camera. If I had, I would be able to confirm that the yellow snails I found in the road were the much more common ‘right-handed’ species.

Then a day or so later, I ran into this article: New Zealand woman’s snail. If you read this article, you know that hermaphroditic critters sex lives are complicated, even with human intervention.

I still haven’t found an explanation of why or when a snail retracts into the shell. In my mind I can see those two yellow-shelled beauties extended their delicate bodies into the air over Obstruction Pass Rd. For my very great pleasure.