Snail Days

The snails are all around the house, it makes me feel kind of slow and 'snaily' myself. That's what I like about Spring, days seem slower, and I know they aren't--they are longer......or wait that makes perfect sense...maybe that's why I yearn or am able to take them slower, there is more there! Makes you just want to lay around and soak up the sun and the sights and the sounds of nature popping up everywhere. To spend time creeping around at home until the pollen starts blowing, the mosquitos find some residences in the yard, and in our case the louder sounds of summer surround us (folks out of school and lawnmowers in the distance). Emma is as I've said a snail aficionado. I haven't told her yet that some folks eat snails....she is not a vegetarian in her other food choices, but this might be upsetting to her to think of her friends served up in butter and garlic. These guys pictured here spent a lot of time with us in a large Stonyfield Farm yogurt container with ten or so of their close relatives. They dined on organic spring mix, were misted with water, and traveled on emma's fingertips to the far reaches of the yard. She found every last one of them a moist home to spend the night, let them go, and saved the yogurt container for another day. Here's a snail poem the kids and I wrote around Valentine's Day when we made those beeswax snails. If only April 15th came as slowly as the snail, but that's another poem with a title more like "How the IRS snail slimed us All" :). Here is our poem "Love like a Snail..." :

Love like a snail...
...is slow
...is beautiful
...is real
...is round like a hug
...is hard and soft
...sometimes likes to hide
...leaves a trail
...is sticky
...it can get slimy
...and like the shell it spirals on forever.

--alex, emma & katy bothwell 2008

Heard of the FairTax?