Snail damage in the garden.
You can not win, get used it..

This morning was a lovely cool morning, one of the last cold fronts over the western cape before the long hot summer. I stroled through the garden enjoying it for a few moments then my eyes caught this aloe. The snails were out late on this cool morning having a brunch before they hide for the day !

"People pay to have snail slime on their skin, I am getting this for free" - I told myself while squashing the snails between my fingers.

In case you do not know it seems the word is going around that snail slime is one of those "proven" remedies for a youthfull skin. I took many years off the age of the skin on my hands but it did not improve the beauty of my hands which were scratched and bitten by the sharp teeth of the aloes at the same time. It is not easy to get the snails out between the aloe leaves.

I feel like doing something to that neck !

Something slower than a quick squash between my fingers.

Unbelievable ...this juvenile snail could not have eaten all that much in one sitting, he must be the last one remaining after a party. Rot can set in where the skin is broken in aloes and other succulents. The hole, on the top right side of the photo above this one must be from the previous party, it dried out well so there is no danger of rot any more.

I believe these two snails are an endemic snail species. I do not know anything about the identity of snails, you are welcome to help me out there. We see them often along the western coast (South Africa). They climb on the wooden fence poles and sit in a bundle. It seems easy to kill them, but those on the poles is only the tip of the snail-mountain. I have not seen them sitting in bundles on poles where we live, 100 km inland. They are not as many as on the coast, but they do a lot of damage all the same.

Could this be the delicatessen snail which arrived here from France? I am not tempted to try, but if we would learn to enjoy eating escargot that would solve more than one problem.