Recent rain totaling seven inches overnight caused a little localized flash flooding, some of it topping out at eight feet, flowing over and breaking the top wire of a nearby game reserve's brand new fence just a mile east of the new homestead parcel. Here, it caused no damage, but it did trigger a population explosion in the cellar, which I totally missed witnessing. Too busy tying up loose ends in the battle with FEMA, the snails emerged, mated, multiplied, and almost all died before it occurred to me that I should check the water level in the cellar since that mighty cloudburst.
Sight of the remains stirred an odd mix of sadness and jubilation. Sad mostly that I missed the incident of new life emerging in cellar darkness, jubilant that they were able to run the cycle undisturbed.
A quick look around revealed no survivors until a glance at the ceiling yielded one keeping company with a roly-poly.
A quick snapshot was all the disturbance I wanted to subject them to. Emerging from the cellar and lowering its heavy slab of a door, I was glad I checked too late to disturb the small dark-realm ecology more than that. Everyone deserves privacy in life.
The 100+ year-old stone walls of the cellar appeared to be as sound as ever, too. The reason I went down into the dark, damp space was all I needed to know, but the sight of the snail orgy aftermath was a cool thing to see until spring storms might coax me back into the cellar.
Comentários