Today I continue my quest in creating and posting one block a day of the fabulous That Town And Country Quilt by the lovely Susan Claire. This is day one hundred and seventy-eight of that project.

This quilt block shows a tree stump in some grass. There are dark green shades of fabric that are cut jagged to look like blades of grass at the bottom of the square. In the middle a orange-brown tree stump rises up. On top the tree stump, which is decorated with a swirling stitch is a black snail with a red shell. The snail is cresting the butte of the tree stump and looking to the left. It has two antenna. All of this is against a blue background. — Click To Enlarge

This is Shellby, the tree snail.

Shellby is a member of the gastropod family.

Shellby has been making her way across the garden for several years. She feels really accomplished, having reached the top of this stump today.

She’s been working around the base of this stump for many weeks, busily helping with the decomposition of leaves and debris.

Snails do above the ground what earthworms do below the ground.

They also reduce the abundance of fungi on leaves and increase fungal diversity.

Shellby is a hermaphrodite. She has both sets of reproductive organs, and while she and her kind usually copulate in the traditional manner with one another, they can self-fertilize and reproduce all by themselves.

Shellby’s shell is made of calcium carbonate.

Worldwide, snails are considered a delectable food source. Besides the well-known escargot in France, Portugal consumes four thousand tons of land snails a year.

They are all related to the common garden slug you can get on the underside of the lettuce in your garden.

Yuck!