Summer of Love

Sometimes it's easy to forget that the little things beneath our feet and in our plants are living, breathing, feeling creatures. As a vegetarian, I do try to be mindful for my impact on the animal world. I'd rather shoo a fly out the door, or catch a spider and release it, and use humane traps for mice so I can release those too (except for mosquitoes, they can die). I try hard. In this weather we've had a lot of snails on our front path, and when I walk on the path at night, in the dark, sometimes my big ugly feet are just not able to avoid them. I try as I hard as I can to miss them, but sometimes I just don't. And I always feel terrible afterwards.

Yesterday for my birthday, I was given some extension tubes to turn my normal lenses into macro lenses. I don't do a heap of macro photography, but sometimes I do get the urge to do a close-up of something, and it frustrates me no end that the lenses I have are completely incapable of capturing those images. So the extension tubes are a relatively inexpensive way for me to get my fix. Today I thought I would test out my new toys on some little snails. When I first went outside there wasn't one to be found, which is ODD because they are everywhere at the moment, and then eventually I saw one meandering down the path.

I didn't know snails were see-through-ish. Or had eyeballs on the end of their antennae things. Their shells are very intricate. They are actually kind of cute, in a slimy way. They're alive. And the only hardship they bring to us humans is to nibble on our plants. So we squash them, or poison them. How sad.

Take a vow, that tomorrow you won't harm a living creature. You won't kill the fly. Or the spider. Maybe you'll have a vegetarian day? Don't squash the snail. Be kind to yourself and your planet.