Garden Snails Can Bite

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Middle School most likely 6th grade

I was always one to be picking up bugs, frogs and all sorts of other animals I
could find outside. Remember Summer Science Projects and my post about the Shadow Boxes?

Well, we had lots of garden snails around along with frogs, toads and lots of lizards. I was forever picking up frogs and having them urinate on me from fear. I also picked up lots of garden snails. I was in search of snails with pretty shells.

One summer day while on the back patio, I lifted a patio brick and found a pretty large garden snail. I had a prize. I picked him up and sat down on the back steps to let im crawl in the palm of my hand. Snails crawl so slowly that it would take quite some time for it to get over its' fear, come out of its' shell and begin to crawl around in my hand.

I waited. I waited about 10 minutes and it came out and began to crawl. It was soft and velvety. It was also just a little slimey but I was used to it. This was a common past time of mine and one I engaged in several times a week. In my open palm the snail crawled out to the tips of my fingers held outstretched. When the snail got to my index finger, I felt a sharb jab like a needle.

I dropped the snail. It has stung me or bit me with something. Who knew? I have never been stung by any sort of snail before. I rubbed my fingertip. It had a little puncture wound in the tip. I went in the house and watched my hands. I felt fine but I had just a naggin itch in my fingertip. I rubbed it.

I later came in the house and had dinner and took a bath. This was about 30-45 minutes after the snail stung me. I did not mention it to anyone as I really did not think any thing much would become of it. I began to itch . All over. I broke out in hives and whelphs all over my entire body.

I told my mother and she make me take a vinegar bath. She told me not to scratch but it was impossible. That itch was an itch of 10,000 itches all over my body. I thought I needed to go to the doctor. She did not. She continued to bathe me in vinegar and said that I had broke out in hives from the bite or was having an allergic reaction. I thought I might die becasue I was being poisoned by the snail bite.

She set up a fan and told me to sit in front and not to scratch. Finally in about 3 hours the itching subsided and the whelphs that broke out all over my body began to subside. I finally was able to go to bed and the next morning I was fine.

Since that day, I have never picked up another garden snail. The only snail type things, I still pick up today are at the end of a fork...escargôt. I love escargôt.

The Eel Fish

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Middle School 6th grade

When I was in middle school there was a time when I had a parade of animals form cats, dogs, mice, hampsters, fish and birds. I had a lovely eel fish that I loved dearly. He was about four inches long and was beige and brown striped. Very pretty.

I was cleaning out his aquarium before school one morning and an awful thing happened. He slipped down the drain. I instantly became hysterical. I was crying like the world was coming to the end. Only a little water went down the drain with him so I was sure that he was still alive in the hook part of the pipes under the kitchen sink. My father and mother thought he was already gone.

I refused to go to school until something was done to get him out of the drain. I had to know he was gone for good. Finally when my parents realized my hysteria was not ending , but was in fact increasing. My father said he would take apart the kitchen pipes and see if he was in the hook of pipe under the sink. He got out his tools and began to wrench and turn and unscrew and presto! The pipe came off. My father looked inside and there was just a little water still in the hook. In that little bit of water was my eel fish.

My father plopped him back in the the clean tank and I stopped the crying and eventually the hitching in my chest began to subside. My eel fish was safe and seemed none the worst for the wear. I was a happy girl. My eel fish was alive!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I was visiting the blogosphere and found this Thankgiving funny over at Chapel Perilous. Enjoy!

Electric Sheep Thanksgiving Special

The Truth Behind Thanksgiving

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

"Pass the deer and eel please!" Are these words you would expect to hear around your Thanksgiving dinner table?

When most people think of a traditional U.S. Thanksgiving dinner, they think of turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and maybe apple pie. The original American Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, however, was very different.

In the fall of 1621, 52 Pilgrims and 90 Native Americans came together in Plymouth, Massachusetts, for meals celebrating the harvest. Although Thanksgiving did not become an official holiday until 1863, most Americans consider the Plymouth feast as the first Thanksgiving.

The food that these early Americans shared was not what most people would expect.

Pilgrims and Native Americans probably ate turkey. Mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and apple pie, however, were not on the menu.

In 1621, potatoes were not part of the Pilgrims' diet. According to Kathleen Curtin, most Pilgrims had never heard of potatoes—potatoes grew only in South America until the late 1600s. Curtin is a food historian at Plimoth Plantation, a living-history museum in Massachusetts.

The Pilgrims and Native Americans may have eaten cranberries, but certainly not cranberry sauce. Sugar, an important ingredient in cranberry sauce, had probably not yet traveled to the New World. According to Curtin, "It would be 50 years before an Englishman mentioned boiling this New England berry with sugar."

But the Pilgrims must have eaten apple pie? Surprisingly, they did not. Apples do not naturally grow in North America. The fruit didn't come to the United States until years later.

So what, then, did people eat at the first Thanksgiving?

The meals and festivities lasted for three days. During that time, the early Americans ate a lot of food. They probably had deer, clams, dried berries, corn, wild turkeys, and fish such as cod, sea bass, and eels.

And the meat did not come in packages from the grocery store.

"Animals were often cooked with heads and feet still attached. The 'humbles' [what we would call guts] were cooked and eaten as well," Carolyn Travers, a researcher at Plimoth Plantation, explained.

This Thanksgiving, as you dig in, be thankful you're eating turkey and pie—and not baked guts!
----
National Geographic

Thanksgiving Past

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Third grade..or maybe fourth.

I remember my neighbor and I used to play together all the time with Barbie's and other dolls. We used to skate outside in the street as well. She loved to cook and she cooked with her mother all the time. She could make a complete meal just about by herself. One afternoon I was at her house and she was making dinner that day. She prepared rice and gravy, green beans and she fried what she called a chicken. That chicken was golden brown and the entier meal looked good. She got me a plate and she after me, she got a plate of food for herself. Her mother was not at home..she had gone to a meeting of some sort. Her father was at home and he was in the den watching the tele.

We dove into the food but had the the most difficult time with that chicken. It would not cut with a knife. You could not bite it and it was as tough as old shoe leather. I had no idea what was wrong and neither did she. She went and got her father and he looked at the meat.

What had she thought was a chicken:? A turkey. My friend had cut up and fried a turkey. There was not any way to eat that. The good thing was I could go home and have dinner with my parents and it would be something my mom cooked.

The joys of cooking...hard lessons learned at a very young age.

Pancakes

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

2nd grade

In remember trying to cook pancakes for my mother who was not feeling well that morning. It was a saturday. I had seen her make pancakes often so surely I could do the same. I got out a frying pan and put a little oil in it and set in on medium to heat. I got out the pancake mix, a bowl and whipped up some pancake batter. All was well and I was sure of success.

I was bubbling over with excitement as I was doing this all by myself. I put the batter in the pan and made a 3 small rings that would soon be 3 small pan cakes. I waited as my mother had told me to watch. When the batter becan to have bubbles in it, it was then time to flip to the other side. That was the key. Bubbles meant that bottom side was golden brown and properly cooked.

As I had never cooked a pancake before, I had never flipped a pancake before and in lies the rub. Flipping the pancakes. I tried to flip one. It was slighlty bigger than my spatula so it broke. I got if flipped in pieces. I tried another. I flipped and it landed on top of the other golden brown pancake. I tried the third and it partially landed on the bottom and side of the pan.

I had a mess.

It was salvageable. Eggs can be overeasy or scrabbled, can't they? Pancakes should work the same. So with that in mind I scrambled the pancakes. I got a big spoon and poured the rest of the batter in the pan and scrambled up a big goopy mess of pancakes. It was my creation. I made sure it was cooked and they were.

I got a plate and place a nice, big hunk of scrambled pancakes on a plate and poured syrup on top. I put the plate on a tray, poured a small glass of orange juice and proceeded to take the tray to my mother. She was upstairs in bed and in I walked, proud of my accomplishment. My mother took the tray and I announced I had something new. Scrambled Pancakes.

I waited for my mother to try them. She took a forkful and stopped. She drank juice. I waited for her to eat it all and tell me how wonderful they were. She then took another small forkful and put the fork down. I asked why she was not eating. She said she needed to rest and asked me to clean up the pan and put the things away I had used. I did. And I then went on to do other things. I never saw her eat the rest but just about all my childhood life I assumed she did.

I look back on it now and I know she must NOT have eaten those pancakes. Scrambled pancakes! What a mess that must have been. At least she was nice enought not to crush me in my first attempt at cooking. You know, I think I will try this recipe again now, just to see if scrambled pancakes can be a good reality and something good to eat.

Move over Emeril! I am kicking it up a notch with scrambled pancakes.

BAM!

My Bloginality

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.

My Bloginality is INFP!!!

As an INFP, you are Intraverted, iNtuative, Feeling , Perceiving.This makes your primary focus on Introverted Feeling with Extraverted Intuition.
This is defined as a NF personality, which is part of Carl Jung's Idealist (Identity Seeking) type, and more specifically the Healers or Idealist
As a weblogger, you have wonderful words to express your feelings because of your idealism. Because you don't like conflict, you may be likely to make one list of links and leave it for a long time without updating for fear of offending.

Beware of Aquatic Frogs!

Snapshots In My Time, Of My Time.....Hauntings.
About 5 years ago.

About 5 years ago, I was visiting my local pet store and saw a cute, very small(no bigger than my thumb nail) albino aquatic frog. After fawning over him and asking about him from the employees, silly me bought him. I had a tank full fo fish and he was a nice addition.

I got him frog food and some other sort of dried blood worms to eat. He seemed very happy with his food. He began to grow. The one thing I had not asked about in the store was how BIG could he grow? Well he continued to grow and he was a joy to watch swimming around in the tank with the other fish.

After several months....about 6--8, I came home from work and noticed a fish was missing. I had so many, I could not be sure and did not think too much about it. I came home 2 days later and it was definite. There was a fish missing. I looked at the cat. Did she do it? No. Did it jump out? I looked all around the tank, but there were no fish on the floor. I began to look at that frog.

My cute little frog that was now the size of egg now. I was still not convinced as all the fish were sooooooo much bigger than the frog. I decided that I had to know the truth. I fed the frog all the time so I know it was not hungry. That weekend, I stayed near the tank all day that Saturday and finally I saw it happen. That small albino frog unhinged its jaw , opened that mouth and poof..a fish was gone in an instant.

I called the pet store and asked about that frog. Was it a predator? YES was the answer. Yes..a very serious predator who could eat things twice his size living in his native environment. Did it only eat other fish? No was the answer! How big could it get? In the wilds of asia/africa it could grow to the size of a basketball!!!! A BASKETBALL!!!??? Yes, a basketball. How big could it get in my tank? Pretty darned big.

Well, I was in a quandry. What to do? I bought a big tank just for him and put him in it alone with no fish. Just a few snails. Poor snails. Come to find that albino aquatic frogs like escargôt too. Little did I know. I found out too late to save them. All I saw was snail shells being expelled from the frogs' mouth. He lived in that tank for another year. He was a predator that I had to feed live fish. I lived at that fish store buying feeder fish for that frog. And still he grew and grew and grew! He became the size of a large navel orange.

I called the pet store again and told them about the status of the frog and how big he was and asked if could they take him back. They said they did not want to buy him back. I was not EVEN talking about any kind of refund. I just wanted to give him back. He was already so big that he could push off from one end of the tank and get to the other in a few seconds. That tank seemed like it was getting too small for him. Plus my cat is a small cat. As big as he could get, my cat could be in danger. I had a lid for the tank but strange things can happen. (We have all seen when animals attack on TV)

The pet said they could not take it back as it was too big. And still growing. I asked about letting it go in a river near my home. They said absolutely not. That frog was a predator and would adversly affect the eco system. In addition, they said it would mate with other frogs in the area and new, mutant, hybrid predator frogs could and would be the result. Since they were not native to North America, I would be introducing a new species into the environment that was a known predator.

In addition the employees at the pet store said I needed to be careful now to be sure that I did not get bitten by the frog. They mentioned exotic toxins, getting ill and who knows about antidotes???? Our doctors might now know what to do if I got bitten. I was stuck. I kept the frog and kept on feeding him. I got another tank. A bigger one. He grew to size of a grapefruit. My mother was terrified. She said that I should get rid of it. I told her I tried but there was nothing I could do short of hopping a plane to a river in Asia or Africa. She said that I needed to do something to get rid of it. She suggested I stopped feeding it and let it die.

I did not think that was very humane--starvation, plus I was afraid it might go after the cat somehow or by some freaky thing happening, get out in search of food and bite someone. Nope. I continued to feed it. I looked up how long it could live. For quite some time. In this new tank it lived another year. I decided I would not buy another tank. It would just have to live out its life in that tank no matter how much bigger it got.

All total I had the frog for about 3 years and it was the size of a grapefruit. That last tank, I do believe, got too small. It did not really have room to swim very much. One day I came home and it seemed not to be moving. That was not unsual as sometimes it seemed not to move for quite some time. Then it would be just fine. Well after about a week of not moving, I really thought it was dead. The fish I fed it still were living. The water began to smell and it really was dead.

Never have I been happy to see a pet die, but I was relieved when my frog did. He was an exotic animal not from this country, obviously adapting far too well to his new home and food. He was the size of a grapefruit when he went to froggy heaven. How many frogs or fish can we say really survive for 3 years in a fish tank? He was beautiful to look at but too much of a burden when it came to the local enviroment. Please take time to really look into those exotic anuimals before you buy them. You might have a worrisom pet on your hands instead of an enjoyable one.