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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Krishna and the Snails
So, we stopped with Percy last time. Percy: Percy is the Eastern Box turtle that someone brought to an organization that I was volunteering for summer before last. The organization is local and intended to rescue and rehabilitate injured and abandoned wildlife. Percy was in fine condition: The woman who brought him in (whose name was Paula, I think) found him in her garden and, because she had dogs, didn't want to keep him. Since box turtles aren't protected (protected animals go to licensed federal rehabilitators), I asked to take him home. He came home with me in a box, and I made him a little home out in the backyard of the house we used to live in. He had plants and rocks to climb on, and I made him a salad everyday complete with mealworms, and the greatest joy of my life was to watch him eat his little wormy salad while I sat nearby. I still enjoy doing this, though he is hibernating now (I don't expect him to be awake until April). He is darling (and its not just me who thinks so: last time I took him to the vet for a checkup, the vet version of a nurse thought so too and tried to cuddle him while he clawed her neck). The Snails: I used to work in a lab where I had to infect (among other things) snails with parasites and subsequently kill and disect them to harvest the parasites, and so my karma was getting really bad. When M. and I went to buy Tata and Keke, I saw these beautiful yellow and black snails for sale as well. It wasn't too long before Tata and Keke outgrew the tiny 1.5 gallon tank I had purchased for them as a starter home, so when we had to return for a larger tank, I suggested to M. that we keep the smaller tank set up and buy some snails. He sighed, rolled his eyes, and laid out $1.99 per snail for three snails, two banana yellow and one beautiful midnight black snails about 2 inches across. I magnanimously allowed him to name them, and he named them after their colors in Sanskrit: Yellow="Hare" and Black="Krishna." All together now: "Hare, Hare, Krishna." Krishna produced three lovely egg sacs, two of which hatched into several dozen tiny brownish snails, and then died. Hare soon followed, and within the last couple of days, Hare did also. We are left with our babies, who began as little pinhead sized snails and now range from dime to quarter sized. Their tank needs cleaning.
More lies:
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