Is That a WLF in our Backyard??? How did that get there???

If you read my blog a little regularly, you might have read about the humongo snail that Loca found by our front door. Huge snail. Snail on steroids. The snail that ate Saigon. Big.

Well the other morning, Loca was doing a quiet, informative bark. I thought it was her, "I really want to be out in the sunshine" bark, but when I came downstairs, she was at the back door. Hmmm. That's unusual.

I looked out the door and saw...what is that? Could it be? It kind of looks like one, but how did it get in our backyard?

I opened the back door and yes, it was, a weird looking fish! I'm not talking a goldfish from some kid's tank. I'm talking 6 inches long, lots of fins, prehistoric looking thing that is probably served in local restaurants. I immediately looked up to the sky! Why?!? Did I think it was raining fish? Did I think that fish were falling from trees? Not sure, but that was my first reaction. Honest to God.



My second reaction was to see if Weird Little Fish was alive. A little kick and it wiggled its tail. Hmmm. A live fish near my back door and we live far from a water source. There was no water trail, so he didn't squirm his way from the Mekong River. Was it going to be someone's breakfast and it made a run for it? So many questions for 7am on a Sunday.


Our teeny tiny backyard area is walled off on all sides. There's no way Weird Little Fish could have gotten there on his own volition. I think one of our neighbors threw Weird Little Fish by our back door! Ha! Maybe it's a Vietnamese custom for long life and prosperity. I hope it doesn't mean "This fish is rotten! We can't eat it for breakfast. Throw it near the round eye's back door. She'll think it's a symbol of long life and prosperity. Silly round eye!"

So what do you do with a live, orphan fish? I pondered the humane thing to do. I considered a rescue mission, but we don't have a fish tank. Even if I was able to keep it alive, where would I eventually put it? I decided to let nature take its course. Had I came down 15 minutes later, the fish would have been dead. Who am I to mess with his fate?

Sorry, Weird Little Fish.

The Snail That Ate Saigon

Yes, Loca is a territorial, yappy dog. But since we've gotten here she's grown accustomed to our little front yard and all the happenings in the hood. She generally doesn't bark when she's out there. She barks when someone right at our gate. This morning she was barking and barking and barking. I looked out the window and she wasn't by the gate. I started to think that maybe someone was IN our yard so I went downstairs to take a look. She was barking at a snail. Ha! What a whimp! Barking at a snail! But this was no ordinary snail, this was a snail on steroids! This was Super Snail! It was huge. Vietnamese people are the smallest people I've ever seen, but damn, they grow BIG snails! I took a picture and held my sunglasses to give it some perspective. I'm not sure it does it justice. From the tip of its head to the tip of its tail, it was about the length of my sunglasses. I've never seen a snail the width of my face!