27 June 2007

Colorful slugs

I mean snails without shells, not any other meaning of the word slug. A slug is called a limace in French, and people don't eat them. Many years ago, when I used to take meals in university cafeterias in Aix-en-Provence and then in Paris, I always saw people turning over the leaves of their lettuce before they ate any to make sure there were no slugs hiding in the salad. Washing salad was not a strong point of the university restaurant staff.

On her French blog Vieux c'est mieux a couple of days ago, Claude posted a picture of a big orange slug (une limace rouge) that she took in the park at the château de Chenonceau when she was there a few weeks ago. I told her that I would post a picture of a California banana slug this week.

Une limace rouge que j'ai prise en photo
un jour d'automne dans la rue de la Renaudière

I had found such a photo, long forgotten, when I was recently sorting through, inspecting, and organizing the two or three hundred CDs that I have archived all my photos on over the past 10 years. I ran out of space in my CD storage system so I had to transfer everything to a different system. That involved looking at some of the older CDs to see what was on them.

A California banana slug that I photographed at Butano
State Park
in the Santa Cruz Mountains ca. 1999.

I would include a link to Claude's blog in this post but both her sites seem to be down this morning. I know she's been having trouble with her blogging software.

These two slugs are of similar size, but the yellow one was all stretched out, whereas the orangey red had assumed a more compact shape for its street crossing.

5 comments:

  1. I find your banana slug particularly yucky ;)
    Yes, I am having trouble with wordpress again this morning. Waiting for my host to get to his office and see what's going on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The little non-photogenic brown ones are fighting me for my strawberries here in California. They're winning.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Chris, I'm beginning to think they always win. We fight them for the sunflowers and everything else. The only thing that's worked so far is raised beds.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We see a few of the brown ones but they are not a problem. And we have never found one of the big red ones in our garden. They seem to stay in the woods all around, where it's shady.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ken, I have to say I love the internet, as I just came across your blog ...

    I've been searching on google for information on a classic car event I came across in the Loire on Sunday 24th June, and all my search words found your site amongst the contenders :-)

    Seeing your photos of the slugs reminded me of when I lived in Geurneville on the Russian River [northern California] and the Slug Fest recipes which were printed each year :-) so thanks for taking me down that winding path of moments in time in the far recesses of my mind.

    And here I am, back in Australia, planning next year's trip to Paris, Lyon and Chambon-sur-Lignon.

    Glad to hear your doggie is feeling so much better.

    Ciao ciao
    Teena!

    ReplyDelete

What's on your mind? Qu'avez-vous à me dire ?