Snails and Schist Story

with arugula flowers

A few years ago Soldier son gave me a lovely piece of schist, a rock slab that he brought from the mountains for me because he knew I would love it. And I did. It isn't the sort of stone you can use for a path or a table or anything, because it's too thin, so I leaned it against the fence for decoration.

All the snails in the area thought I had made that arrangement just for their sakes -- the perfect snail house. I think I even posted a photo of it here once before. Oh, yes, here it is, last April.

When I was trimming the honeysuckle this week I thought I would check behind my rock for snails, and this time there was a cute little colony of them. I laid the slab down on the ground so that I could take their picture, which you see here. 

I went into the house for my camera, snapped the photo, took the camera back, and got on with my pruning job. Crunch. I had stepped right on to the schist and broken it into many pieces, of which I decidedly did not want to take a picture, because it would be too sad.