05 Jul, 2015
Strange things in the garden, part 1 [a story with no ending, just a lot of questions]
Posted by andrea tomkins in: Oh! Things!
It had been raining steadily all day, and I took advantage of a break in the bad weather to take a little walk around our garden. It was looking especially neglected. Plants were becoming leggy and overgrown and the weeds were taking over. I could see how much work I had ahead of me. It was wild, but part of me secretly liked it this way.
I paused to admire a corner of the garden that doesn’t seem to attract many weeds and is home to two large hostas. They were just about to flower, and the leaves – so beautiful they look almost sculptural – had collected their own small puddles of water. These leaves always remind me of awnings; so thick and heavy I was sure they’d offer any small creature shelter in the pouring rain.
This was my view as I was standing in front of the hostas:
A little bit of red under the one hosta caught my eye and so I moved the wet leaves aside with my hand and leaned in for a closer look. This is what I saw:
What a surprise! There was a tiny row of toadstools and a very very tiny spade beside them. A snail was sniffing (do snails even sniff?) and eyeballing the hostas with its pointy eyes. (I googled this afterwards and learned they’re actually called tentacles.) He (or she?) seemed very determined – or afraid – and he ran right over them, leaving a slimy snail trail. (And by RUNNING, I mean, of course, that he or she moved VERY VERY SLOWLY.)
I had no idea something this dramatic was happening right underneath our hostas! What had I interrupted? And what was the snail doing there? Is he friend, or foe? Is he a he or a she? And whose tiny garden spade was that?
That wasn’t the only thing I have spotted in the garden recently. You won’t believe what else I found, once I started to spend a bit more time looking.
