Snail trail
January 30th, 2008, 8:56 am Hobbies News
My gumboots lie derelict. They sit by the garage door in silent reproach. Its difficult to make them understand that my neglect of them is born from such considerations as 35degC afternoons that force me indoors, not to mention small but signal details such as the complete absence of underfoot wetness.
Gumboots are such prima donnas. Its all about them, with no thought to sandals or jandals, or footwear suited to hot ground.
Yesterday I saw a snail. I was transfixed. Never in 42 years of living in northern Southland have I laid eyes upon one. It meandered across a strip of veranda shade, leaving in its wake a maze of slime before dropping off the edge of the concrete into my rose garden %26acirc;%26#128;%26#148; or what passes for one these days.
Was this a sign I wondered of some spooky influx, a plague equalling that of biblical frogs and serpents, or just another %26quot;climate change%26quot; hypothesis for the scientists to ponder over.
Parked in Gores main street one day I was intrigued with the antics of an entrepreneurial sparrow that brought new meaning to the word takeaway.
Instead of expending precious energy foraging for food in the blistering heat, he (or it could have been she; Im not good at these things) hopped from car grille to grille, picking off the dead insects. So convenient and so considerate.
Perhaps prematurely, the dry weather we are experiencing across the country has brought many water-related issues to the fore. Even for people like me, whose livelihood is no longer weather-dependent, the seriousness of the water issue, with all its connotations, has come sharply into a focus. The right to take water and to own and control its usage is rapidly becoming a matter of national importance. There is much at stake. With an election year just around the corner, water will become a political football.
We are all affected. We can exist without many of the trappings of our miraculous world, but water is a fundamental.
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