Mid-May Snail Patrol

A rainy morning in May is not a common thing in these parts, but here I was at 9 am trolling the garden for snails in a light drizzle. Leaves of all sorts of plants were studded with water droplets, the phlomis, the eriogonum, the abutilon to name a few. In such conditions I would expect to find snails anywhere on the plants, or everywhere, especially the recently planted rudbeckia. But most of the snails I saw were on spiny or soft succulent plants: sedum, aloe, between the spines of a cactus. Except in the case of the cactus, this may be because under the succulents is a relatively moist place to hide during our normally dry weather, and this is where most of the snails started when the rain began. How far does a snail travel in a night's foraging?








I throw the snails I pick into the street because I'm too much of a weenie to crush them, preferring to let the crows have their way with the succulent little molluscan tidbits.