Creatures and Pets

I've been meaning to post about this for a while....since June! Emma's despair over the small yard was quickly dispelled when they discovered what lay beneath the dirt. I have never in my life seen anyone so excited over worms and slugs. I'm not really sure if Matthew's slugs are really slugs, or if they are snails. Is a slug just a snail without a shell? I really must google this, so I can tell him correctly. These he is finding LOOK like snails, and nothing like what I picture a slug to look like. (At least not the ones that used to crawl into T.J's food dish.) What I call a slug is a big fat round blob. These are cute little guys with antennas. See....isn't it cute? Reminds me of Gary on Spongebob. Even though Gary has a shell. Matthew is totally enraptured with them. He calls them his pets.

Emma's *pets* are worms. Although she calls them creatures. (All animals are creatures to her...after hearing them referred to as God's creatures.) They are the biggest, fattest worms I've ever seen. Would love to use them on the end of a pole to entice a catfish or two. (don't tell Emma) This one is little, but it's the one she had at the time. She would tell you it's a baby.

Here's a bigger one.

They LOVE having them crawl all over them and think it's the greastest thing ever. Although, Emma stears clear of the snails (since Matthew calls them "nails" I will too until I google.) She doesn't like the slime. They have an understanding...Matthew cares for snails and Emma cares for worms. Neither is above babysitting, and Matthew doesn't mind the worms, but no slime for Emma. Not only does Matthew not mind the slime, but he wallows in it. He thinks it's cool. Cool enough that his hands are always covered. "Look Mama, my pets like me. *insert giggle* He's tickling my hand." It's sticky ya know. The slime. Ya, it is. The dirt from digging for them? It sticks to the slime that is sticking to the hand. Did you know that snail slime does not wash off? Nope, not even with soap. You have to SCRUB it off. I know. I had to do it more than once almost every day the entire summer. The snails and worms never went away. It was crazy. Every day there were more. (Worms are still showing up, but the snails must have already gone south for the winter.) No, they weren't the same ones each day. I knew, even if they didn't, because many had visible handicaps after being handled so much.

They came up with a pretty good system. Each had a bucket to house their pets/creatures. It was a big deal to prepare this bucket for creature living. Dirt, water, grass, twigs...you name it. All the pets went into their respective buckets at the end of the day. Snails in one, worms in the other. Depending on how well the bucket was prepared, some actually survived on to the next day. To be rewarded with more friends, or mommies, daddies, brothers, sisters, added to the bucket. Poor Matthew, the snails usually crawled out. But he eventually agreed that it was best they went back to their mommy and daddy. The big fat worms usually didn't mind the bucket of mud and would stick around for a while.
I have to admit. It was fun watching Emma pull worms out of the ground! I never knew a worm could be so fast. LOL

Found this about snails/slugs. What I figured, but read the first couple paragraphs. Did you know they can glide across a razor blade without being cut??? You might have to copy and paste to your browser. I can't figure out how to get the link to work. There is an underscore mark after the word slugs and before the word snails. www.daviswiki.org/slugs_&_snails