Snails

Little lizards now have fresh little snails the perfect size for them. Thanks to some regular rain and the allure of damp masonry blocks around an old compost heap, I could collect many over three mornings. Normally they are scarce to find at our farm.

It was about all I was able to cope with. During the five hour drive all the horrid symptoms of a Very Bad Cold developed in rapid sequence, until all I was fit for on arrival at the farm was crawling into bed for days.

My primary mission had been picking up my best self-propelled Weapon of Biomass Destruction from the mower service where it was left on the way back to Sydney weeks earlier. However I simply could not contemplate doing any mowing. Long grass is totally engulfing our farm, and I was stuck lying in bed, too weak to even read. I remember waking to birds trilling and dull light, not knowing if it was evening or morning -- turned out to be evening, but no worries about going back to sleep until morning.

When I did find the strength to test the mower, the sight of petrol draining from the newly filled tank all over the motor from some crack in the fuel line casued by the service mechanics, was very disheartening. What an effort to get the mower back into the trailer and roped up to be returned to town on my way back to Sydney.

So one could view the whole cost of the trip, in terms of petrol and car wear and tear, as a total waste. Or it could be viewed as bringing home some vastly expensive (but much appreciated) snails.

These are not your average garden snails. Much smaller, even when fully grown, they are probably the Asiatic Land Snail which are now spread from Brisbane to Bega (and apparently partial to citrus orchards).

On the left is a shell of the Giant Panda Snail (Hedleyella falconeri). This is the biggest native land snail in Australia (from northern NSW rainforests). In the centre is the garden snail (Helix aspersa). On the right is the snail from our property (probably Bradybaena similaris). And the pink-tongued lizard (Cyclodomorphus gerrardii) has just noticed the last shell on the right is alive!

Being able to offer little snails is so much better than having to chop up big snails. Little lizards can exercise their instincts for crunching shells, and tidily spitting out the fragments.