i'm here to take you now

[snootyfoxfashion]

Book Scarves by UniversalZone

x / x / x / x x / x / x / x

[dreamsandteethmarks]

Thai Fish Dumplings 🥟

Ingredients

Serves: 5-6 people

Filling

1kg sea perch or ling fillets

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups red onion

½ cup coriander (chopped)

2 tsp salt

1½ tsp sugar

Dumpling Pastry

8 tbsp Erawan Tapioca Starch

1 tbsp Erawan Glutinous Rice Flour

2 tbsp arrowroot flour

2 cups Erawan Rice Flour

2½ cups cooled water

Directions

To Cook

Boil fish until cooked. Drain, cool and blend in a food processor.

Heat oil in a wok and add onion, cook for 1 min.

Add fish, pepper, salt and coriander. Mix well and cool.

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan.

Place on low heat and stir continuously until cooked and thick. Cool until warm.

Coat hands with tapioca flour and knead the mixture, then divide into balls (approx the size of golf balls)

Sprinkle bench and rolling pin with tapioca flour and roll the balls into 5cm round circles, about 2mm thick.

Place filling on one side and fold over to form a semi-circle.

Crimp edges decoratively to seal in the filling.

Steam for 10 mins until cooked (you will notice the dumpling pastry becoming semi-translucent). Serve with salad, coriander and fried shallots.

Hint: These dumplings can also be baked using puff pastry.

[dreamsandteethmarks]

Seafood and Chive Dumplings 🥟

Ingredients

6 ounces fresh skinless striped bass or other firm white fish, finely chopped

6 ounces shelled and deveined shrimp, finely chopped

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

1 tablespoon Shaoshing rice wine or dry sherry

1 tablespoon light soy sauce

1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

Pinch minced seeded red chile, optional

Pinch sea salt

Pinch ground white pepper

6 Chinese chives or flowering garlic chives or 3 scallions, finely sliced

4 dried Chinese (shiitake) mushrooms, soaked in hot water and finely diced

36 square wonton wrappers

2 large carrots, thinly sliced on a sharp bias

Dipping Sauce:

1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves

3 tablespoons toasted sesame oil

3 tablespoons light soy sauce

3 tablespoons rice vinegar

1 small red chile, stemmed, seeded and very finely diced

Directions

Mix the bass, shrimp, cornstarch, ginger, Shaoshing, soy sauce, sesame oil, red chile, salt, white pepper, chives and mushrooms in a medium bowl until well combined.

Working in batches, lay out 8 of the wonton wrappers on a work surface and place a teaspoonful of the seafood filling into the center of each. Rub the outer edges of the wrapper with water using your finger and then place the wonton into your hand. Fold the wrapper into a triangle, pressing the edges together to seal in the filling, and then create 6 to 8 pleats along the sealed edges using your thumb and index fingers, pinching well to adhere. Repeat with the remaining filling and wrappers. Lay the carrot slices in a bamboo steamer and place a dumpling on top of each.

Fill a wok or large skillet with 1 inch water and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Place the lid on the bamboo steamer and lower it into the wok. Steam the dumplings until the fish is cooked through and the dumpling wrappers are translucent, 5 to 7 minutes.

For the dipping sauce: Whisk together the cilantro, sesame oil, soy sauce, vinegar and chiles in a small bowl until combined.

Serve the dumplings warm with the dipping sauce on the side.

[dreamsandteethmarks]

Thai Fried Fish Cake  |  Tod Mun Pla

A speedy way to make this is to buy readily made fish paste and bottled red curry (fish paste available from wet markets and some supermarkets here is usually made from carp 鯪魚). I made my own fish paste in a food processor, followed by some stirring (kneading) to make it bouncy enough.

That way, I may choose my fish paste to make from the fillet of catfiish, markerel or even from swimming cat carps, and I know what exactly are added to it.

With galangal, lemon grass, chili, shallot, and a few more spices, I also made my own red curry paste. Many of them also make up the crew that cooked me this Thai’s tom yam goong (hot and sour soup with shrimps).

Knowing that I was not time pressed, I chose pan-frying than deep-frying. Pan-frying these fish cakes takes the similar steps as pan-fried tofu: heat pan and oil enough, flip each of them only after the down side is done. There was no mess up too.

Ingredients

~200g white fish fillet, I used carp

1/2 tsp corn starch or potato starch

1/4 tsp sea salt

2 tsp water

2 sprigs coriander, finely chopped

2 lime leaves, roll up and shred like this

2 tbsp cooking oil

1-2 red chilies, thinly sliced, optional

Seasonings

1/4 tsp fish sauce

1/2 tsp brown or shaved palm sugar

1 tbsp red curry paste

1/8 tsp ground white pepper

Method

Defrost fish fillet, skin (if any), clean, pat dry, cut into chunks. In a food processor, add corn starch, sea salt, water and process fish fillets until smooth, about half to one minute. You may need to stop the processor once or twice to scrape down the meat to process thoroughly.

Transfer to a big bowl. Using a wooden spoon (I use a pair of chopsticks), stir the fish paste in one direction until the lumps are bouncy. It is important to do the stirring in ONE DIRECTION, about 10 minutes, or the meat won’t turn bouncy. If you work with a larger amount of meat, you may try moist your hand and kneading it like a dough in a bowl, again until it appears bouncy.

Add in seasonings, chopped corianders, shredded lime leaves and mix well. Using two greased spoons (if using moistened hand, be careful of the chili may cause hotness), form heaping tablespoonfuls of fish paste and flatten into thick discs.

Heat pan and oil over medium heat, when the oil looks slightly wavy, regulate flame to low. Lay fish paste onto the pan one by one. If you know you could work fast, just grease a spoon and scoop out the fish paste directly onto the heated pan, and flatten each by spoon, or spatula, or turner (whichever, oil it a bit before touching the paste).

Do not move patties until the downsides turn golden browned, about 3 minutes. Then, lift and flip patties, brown the other sides until done. Red curry pastes differ in saltiness, so you may want to sample frying one small patty before doing the whole batch. To increase hotness, add one or more sliced red chilies to your liking.

Serve hot with chili sauce, or Thai hot and sour sauce, or this homemade lime and garlic dressing. Make them bouncy, and enjoy!

[dreamsandteethmarks]

Thai Fish Cakes

Lately we’ve been obsessed with these fish cakes. Here are three reasons you should try them out:

You can create that smooth and springy texture with normal white fish fillets from a normal grocery store. No need to run to an Asian store to get fish paste.

It’s super easy to prepare the fish paste, with 5 minutes and a spin in the food processor.

These fish cakes are decadent enough to serve as a main.

The key to the springy texture

The secrets of creating the perfect fish cake texture at home–by adding egg whites and beating the fish paste with a mixer, to create that airy, fluffy texture. It is a process that mimics the traditional method of beating the fish with wooden sticks. But with modern tools, you can actually accomplish it at home by simply turning on your mixer and letting it run for a few minutes.

When I tried out her method, I did a few things differently:

I used fish fillets instead of fish paste. I was curious to see if I could recreate that smooth texture without running to the Asian market. The results turned out to be excellent.

I beat the fish paste while grinding it in my food processor. The fish paste turned out well without special mixture.

I didn’t use kaffir lime leaves because I couldn’t find them. It did not affect the flavor too much.

The result was perfect springy fish cake with a smooth texture and bold flavor, just like the ones you have in a restaurant.

How to shape the fish cakes without getting your hands dirty

During the cooking, I also found a great way to create round-shaped fish cakes without shaping them with your hands. Here is how:

Use a cookie scoop to transfer a ball of 2 tablespoons of fish paste onto an oiled spatula.

Press the fish ball with the back of another spatula or a large spoon to flatten the ball into a 1/4-inch (1/2-cm) thick disc.

Gently slide the shaped fish cake into the pan. It will be easy because the spatula is coated with oil.

Fry until the fish cake turns golden.

OK, it might look like a lot of work. But I’m a control freak and I want my fish cakes to be perfectly round. Judge me if you want!

In case you don’t want to deep fry the fish cakes, you can use a little oil and pan fry them as well. The fish cakes won’t have a consistent golden surface, but it won’t affect the taste.

[kyletwebster]

This is a watercolor sketch created in Adobe Fresco. Adobe Fresco is free. Just a friendly reminder. I still see a lot of misinformation online regarding what is behind a paywall. Facts here: 1. The free version gives you 80% of the pixel brushes. 2. The free version gives you all of the watercolors and oils. 3. The free version gives you all of the vector brushes. 4. The free version gives you ALL tools, no layer limits, all layer properties and actions, timelapse, PNG, PDF, JPG and full-resolution layered PSD files export. 5. The free version gives you all other app actions and features, including masking, templates, color history, etc. 6. The free version gives you 2 gigs of free cloud storage. In other words, to sum it up: Adobe Fresco is a free, robust, professional illustration app that lets you work from sketch to final art and send it to a client. Fact! : )

[brenna-ivy]

You've likely gotten this question before but can I ask how it is you "animate" the Modern Male Witch pieces? I've been wanting to try simple animation like that (where just a few elements of a picture move, not the whole image) but I'm finding it difficult to find resources online for what I'm trying to do. Is there a specific tutorial you follow or anywhere you could point me that would help? Thank you!

I’m so sorry this reply comes so late. I always leave them for later and then forget about them.

I’ve figured out my own easy way of animation by trying out some things and finding out what works best for me.

So here’s sort of how I do it:While drawing in Clip Studio Paint I plan out in advance what things I want to animate, and I make sure I have separate layers for all the frames of the animation so I can always fidget with them without interfering with the rest of the drawing. How many frames I need and how far they need to be apart is always a bit of a guess because I use a different program for the animation and I can’t check what it looks like in between.After I’ve finished the drawing, I open the entire thing (unflattened, layers and everything) in Photoshop Motion and I start constructing the Timeline table by making different layers visible for every new frame I make on the table (this is a bit difficult to explain). Let’s say for frame 1 I make a layer with a light orb visible. For frame 2 I make that first layer with the orb invisible and make another layer visible where the orb is put a bit higher. Third frame is another visible layer where the orb is again a bit higher. I continue doing this until I’m happy with it. I do need to remember to move the orb downwards at some point because I’m making a looped animation! If I then click on the play button in the Timeline table I have a floating light orb! Whoa! So cool looking!For this piece I had two groups of light orbs and and made them move separately so it looked more lively:

You can try out a lot of different things with very simple animations this way! And remember: the more animation layers you create, the smoother the animation will look in the end!Animating in Photoshop looks something like this:

You have your different layers of the original file on the right, and your animation Timeline table at the bottom. You can make as many new frames in the animation as you want, but remember this also complicates the animation. I prefer using about 15 frames max, but fewer is always better, and then I use the loop in a clever way so it doesn’t look like so few frames.You can also change the duration each frame will be shown. I usually have this at 0.2 second. But try out some things to see what looks better for your animation.When you’ve watched the preview over and over and over again and you’re happy with your animation you can go export it! You go to File > Export > Save for Web. You get a pop-up frame such a this one:

The tutorial I got these pictures from recommends these settings, but I usually play around with them a bit to see what looks best. The most important things are that you save the file as a GIF, and that you put the Looping on Forever.For Tumblr specific animations I also put the width dimensions at 540 pixels since that is the width of Tumblr posts and I’ve noticed that sometimes Tumblr doesn’t take animated GIFs very well if the file is too big.

That’s it! You have now created an animated GIF!Trial and error goes a long way! Try out a lot of different things and see what they look like when you animate them :D

[dreamsandteethmarks]

[dreamsandteethmarks]

[wide-awaaaaake]

Alternatives to Tumblr if Yahoo goes any further

Soup.io - well-known alternative to Tumblr. Reblogging, post types, themes, collab blogs, dashboard, artsy, great community already there. Soup can auto-import everything you’ve posted on Tumblr.

TypePad - Includes reblogging. Dashboard and post types similar to Tumblr.

Jux - Artful posts, beautiful blogging experience

[bollymusings]

Reblogging cause one day it just may be neccessary.

[arubbishmedic]

It became necessary

[teacupballerina]

for nsfw artists:

pixiv.net

[aonoco]

[animationtidbits]

Max Ulichney - Gouache MaxPack Procreate Brushes (x)

[oaluz]

Exercise: Exploring New Ways of Being in Relationships

Let’s create a profile of emotional maturity that you can work towards. The following lists present a picture of how an emotionally mature person might interact and behave in relationships. Read through the following lists of new behaviours, beliefs and values and choose a few to practice. Just pick one or two at a time, and be gentle with yourself as you work on them. Some might be harder than others.

Being Willing to Ask for Help:

I’ll ask for help whenever I need to.

I’ll remind myself that if I need something, most people will be glad to help if they can.

I’ll use clear, intimate communication to ask for what I want, explaining my feelings and the reasons for my request.

I’ll trust that most people will listen if I ask them to.

Being Myself, Whether People Accept Me or Not:

When I state my thoughts clearly and politely, without malice, I won’t try to control how people take it.

I won’t give more energy than I really have.

Instead of trying to please, I’ll give other people a true indication of how I feel.

I won’t volunteer for something if I think I’ll resent it later.

If someone says something I find offensive, I’ll offer an alternative viewpoint. I won’t try to change the other person’s mind; I just won’t let the statement go unremarked upon.

Sustaining and Appreciating Emotional Connections:

I’ll make a point of keeping in touch with special people I care about and returning their calls or emotional messages.

I’ll think of myself as a strong person who deserves to give and receive help from my community of friends.

Even when people aren’t saying the “right” thing, I’ll tune in to whether they’re trying to help me. If their effort makes me feel emotionally nurtured, I’ll express my gratitude.

When I’m irritated with someone, I’ll think about what I want to say that could improve our relationship. I’ll wait until I cool off and then ask if the other person is willing to listen to my feelings.

Having Reasonable Expectations for Myself:

I’ll keep in mind that being perfect isn’t always necessary. I’ll get stuff done rather than obsess over getting things done perfectly.

When I get tired, I’ll rest or do something different. My level of physical energy will tell me when I’ve been doing too much. I won’t wait for an accident or illness to make me stop.

When I make a mistake, I’ll chalk it up to being human. Even if I think I’ve anticipated everything, there will be outcomes I don’t expect.

I’ll remember that everyone is responsible for their own feelings and for expressing their needs clearly. Beyond common courtesy, it isn’t up to me to guess what others want.

Communicating Clearly and Actively Seeking the Outcomes I Want:

I won’t expect people to know what I need unless I tell them. Caring about me doesn’t mean they automatically know what I’m feeling.

If people close to me upset me, I’ll use my pain to identify my underlying need. Then I’ll use clear, intimate communication to provide guidance on how they could give it to me.

When my feelings are hurt, I’ll try to understand my reaction first. Did something trigger feelings from my past, or did the person really treat me insensitively? If someone was insensitive, I’ll ask him or her to hear me out.

I’ll be thoughtful to other people, and if they aren’t thoughtful in return, I’ll ask them to be more considerate and then let it go.

I’ll ask for something as many times as it takes to get a clear answer.

When I get tired of interacting, I’ll politely speak up, asking if we can continue our contact at another time. I’ll explain kindly that I’m just out of gas at the moment.

(From Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson)

[gadgets-cnl]

50 Top Online Learning Sites

Rejoice fellow uni students looking for some studyspo, we urge you to take a few free lessons, as well as academic lessons provided from actual universities on several topics. Have a look at the 50 top learning sites you can find online to help you save some time.

Art and Music

Dave Conservatoire — Dave Conservatoire is an entirely free online music school offering a self-proclaimed “world-class music education for everyone,” and providing video lessons and practice tests.

Drawspace — If you want to learn to draw or improve your technique, Drawspace has free and paid self-study as well as interactive, instructor-led lessons.

Justin Guitar — The Justin Guitar site boasts over 800 free guitar lessons which cover transcribing, scales, arpeggios, ear training, chords, recording tech and guitar gear, and also offers a variety of premium paid mobile apps and content (books/ ebooks, DVDs, downloads).

Math, Data Science and Engineering

Codecademy — Codecademy offers data science and software programming (mostly Web-related) courses for various ages groups, with an in-browser coding console for some offerings.

Stanford Engineering Everywhere — SEE/ Stanford Engineering Everywhere houses engineering (software and otherwise) classes that are free to students and educators, with materials that include course syllabi, lecture videos, homework, exams and more.

Big Data University — Big Data University covers Big Data analysis and data science via free and paid courses developed by teachers and professionals.

Better Explained — BetterExplained offers a big-picture-first approach to learning mathematics — often with visual explanations — whether for high school algebra or college-level calculus, statistics and other related topics.

Design, Web Design/ Development

HOW Design University — How Design University (How U) offers free and paid online lessons on graphic and interactive design, and has opportunities for those who would like to teach.

HTML Dog — HTML Dog is specifically focused on Web development tutorials for HTML, CSS and JavaScript coding skills.

Skillcrush — Skillcrush offers professional web design and development courses aimed at one who is interested in the field, regardless of their background — with short, easy-to-consume modules and a 3-month Career Blueprints to help students focus on their career priorities.

Hack Design — Hack Design, with the help of several dozen designers around the world, has put together a lesson plan of 50 units (each with one or more articles and/or videos) on design for Web, mobile apps and more by curating multiple valuable sources (blogs, books, games, videos, and tutorials) — all free of charge.

General – Children and Adults

Scratch – Imagine, Program, Share — Scratch from MIT is a causal creative learning site for children, which has projects that range from the solar system to paper planes to music synths and more.

Udemy — Udemy hosts mostly paid video tutorials in a wide range of general topics including personal development, design, marketing, lifestyle, photography, software, health, music, language, and more.

E-learning for kids — E-learning for Kids offers elementary school courses for children ages 5-12 that cover curriculum topic including math, science, computer, environment, health, language, life skills and others.

Ed2go — Ed2go aims their “affordable” online learning courses at adults, and partners with over 2,100 colleges and universities to offer this virtual but instructor-led training in multiple categories — with options for instructors who would like to participate.

GCF Learn Free — GCFLearnFree.org is a project of Goodwill Community Foundation and Goodwill Industries, targeting anyone look for modern skills, offering over 1,000 lessons and 125 tutorials available online at anytime, covering technology, computer software, reading, math, work and career and more.

Stack Exchange — StackExchange is one of several dozen Q+A sites covering multiple topics, including Stack Overflow, which is related to computer technology. Ask a targeted question, get answers from professional and enthusiast peers to improve what you already know about a topic.

HippoCampus — HippoCampus combines free video collections on 13 middle school through college subjects from NROC Project, STEMbite, Khan Academy, NM State Learning Games Lab and more, with free accounts for teachers.

Howcast — Howcast hosts casual video tutorials covering general topics on lifestyle, crafts, cooking, entertainment and more.

Memrise — Lessons on the Memrise (sounds like “memorize”) site include languages and other topics, and are presented on the principle that knowledge can be learned with gamification techniques, which reinforce concepts.

SchoolTube — SchoolTube is a video sharing platform for K-12 students and their educators, with registered users representing over 50,000 schools and a site offering of over half a million videos.

Instructables — Instructables is a hybrid learning site, offering free online text and video how-to instructions for mostly physical DIY (do-it-yourself) projects that cover various hands-on crafts, technology, recipes, game play accessories and more. (Costs lie in project materials only.)

creativeLIVE — CreativeLive has an interesting approach to workshops on creative and lifestyle topics (photography, art, music, design, people skills, entreprenurship, etc.), with live access typically offered free and on-demand access requiring purchase.

Do It Yourself — Do It Yourself (DIY) focuses on how-tos primarily for home improvement, with the occasional tips on lifestyle and crafts topics.

Adafruit Learning System — If you’re hooked by the Maker movement and want to learn how to make Arduino-based electronic gadgets, check out the free tutorials at Adafruit Learn site — and buy the necessary electronics kits and supplies from the main site.

Grovo — If you need to learn how to efficiently use a variety of Web applications for work, Grovo has paid (subscription, with free intros) video tutorials on best practices for hundreds of Web sites.

General College and University

edX — The edX site offers free subject matter from top universities, colleges and schools from around the world, including MIT and Harvard, and many courses are “verified,” offering a certificate of completion for a nominal minimum fee.

Cousera — Coursera is a learning site offering courses (free for audit) from over 100 partners — top universities from over 20 countries, as well as non-university partners — with verified certificates as a paid option, plus specializations, which group related courses together in a recommended sequence.

MIT Open Courseware — MIT OpenCourseWare is the project that started the OCW / Open Education Consortium [http://www.oeconsortium.org], launching in 2002 with the full content of 50 real MIT courses available online, and later including most of the MIT course curriculum — all for free — with hundreds of higher ed institutions joining in with their own OCW course materials later.

Open Yale Courses — Open Yale Courses (OYC) are free, open access, non-credit introductory courses recorded in Yale College’s classroom and available online in a number of digital formats.

Open Learning Initiative — Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU’s) Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is course content (many open and free) intended for both students who want to learn and teachers/ institutions requiring teaching materials.

Khan Academy — Khan Academy is one of the early online learning sites, offering free learning resources for all ages on many subjects, and free tools for teachers and parents to monitor progress and coach students.

MIT Video — MITVideo offers over 12,000 talks/ lecture videos in over 100 channels that include math, architecture and planning, arts, chemistry, biological engineering, robotics, humanities and social sciences, physics and more.

Stanford Online — Stanford Online is a collection of free courses billed as “for anyone, anywhere, anytime” and which includes a wide array of topics that include human rights, language, writing, economics, statistics, physics, engineering, software, chemistry, and more.

Harvard Extension School: Open Learning Initiative — Harvard’s OLI (Open Learning Initiative) offers a selection of free video courses (taken from the edX selection) for the general public that covers a range of typical college topics, includings, Arts, History, Math, Statistics, Computer Science, and more.

Canvas Network — Canvas Network offers mostly free online courses source from numerous colleges and universities, with instructor-led video and text content and certificate options for select programs.

Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple — Quantum Physics Made Relatively Simple” is, as the name implies, a set of just three lectures (plus intro) very specifically about Quantum Physics, form three presentations given by theoretical physicist Hans Bethe.

Open UW — Open UW is the umbrella initiative of several free online learning projects from the University of Washington, offered by their UW Online division, and including Coursera, edX and other channels.

UC San Diego Podcast Lectures — Podcast USCD, from UC San Diego, is a collection of audio and/or video podcasts of multi-subject university course lectures — some freely available, other only accessible by registered students.

University of the People — University of the People offers tuition-free online courses, with relatively small fees required only for certified degree programs (exam and processing fees).

NovoEd — NovoEd claims a range of mostly free “courses from thought leaders and distinguished professors from top universities,” and makes it possible for today’s participants to be tomorrow’s mentors in future courses.

IT and Software Development

Udacity — Udacity offers courses with paid certification and nanodegrees — with emphasis on skills desired by tech companies in Silicon Valley — mostly based on a monthly subscription, with access to course materials (print, videos) available for free.

Apple Developer Site — Apple Developer Center may be very specific in topics for lessons, but it’s a free source of documentation and tutorials for software developers who want to develop apps for iOS Mobile, Mac OS X desktop, and Safari Web apps.

Google Code — As with Apple Developer Center, Google Code is topic-narrow but a good source of documentation and tutorials for Android app development.

Code.org — Code.org is the home of the “Hour of Code” campaign, which is aimed at teachers and educators as well as students of all ages (4-104) who want to teach or learn, respectively, computer programming and do not know where to start.

Mozilla Developer Network — MDN (Mozilla Developer Network) offers learning resources — including links to offsite guides — and tutorials for Web development in HTML, CSS and JavaScript — whether you’re a beginner or an expert, and even if you’re not using Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser.

Learnable — Learnable by Sitepoint offers paid subscription access to an ebook library of content for computers and tablets, and nearly 5,000 videos lessons (and associated code samples) covering software-related topics – with quizzes and certification available.

Pluralsight — Pluralsight (previously PeepCode) offers paid tech and creative training content (over 3,700 courses and 130K video clips) for individuals, businesses and institutions that covers IT admin, programming, Web development, data visualization — as well as game design, 3D animation, and video editing through a partnership with Digital-Tutors.com, and additional software coding lessons through Codeschool.com.

CodeHS — CodeSchool offers software coding lessons (by subscription) for individuals who want to learn at home, or for students learning in a high school teacher-led class.

Aquent Gymnasium — Gymnasium offers a small but thorough set of free Web-related lesson plans for coding, design and user experience, but filters access by assessing the current knowledge of an enrollee and allows those with scores of at least 70% to continue.

[sashacoki]

Apple Cider Vinegar Morning Detox Drink

[foxxsmoulder]

[snailkeeping]

Snails are awesome, so I’m doing a quick guide on H. aspersa, which are legal in the US, and are just as awesome as fat squishy African snails.

But snails are gross-

excuse you

But they-

no

Snails are great. They’re very small, sociable, harmless, silent and can live for several years. They also have no ears and they’re nocturnal. Every snail is unique, from their personality to their physical appearance. You won’t think I’m bullshitting you when you’ve kept them yourself. Just because they look like slugs with shells glued on doesn’t mean they don’t have minds of their own.

Never paid attention to the snails in your garden? Keep snails but think garden snails are boring? I’ve seen far more variety in my aspersa colony than any other species of snail. Red bodies, pale bodies, grey, black, one of them even has a black patch on their head. Their name is Patches. Every single shell is unique as well, and well worth keeping long after they’ve passed away.

They make faces too. Snails make facial expressions. My albino A. reticulata makes his disapproval of virtually everything I offer him very clear. Nothing’s too good for him to wrinkle his face up and move away like a fussy toddler. You can sit there and shove a spoon of mash in his face, it’s just like trying to feed a bratty child, which is especially problematic when they’ve had worms. Eat your medicine damnit. The other snails eat their deworming medicine just fine you little shit.

If you don’t believe snails can be unique and have their own minds and personalities yet you need to go order some snails right now. Yes, right now.

Now onto the things you’ll need/need to know.

Requirements:

2+ snails. (1 snail is not acceptable, they need another snail to socialize with. No exceptions, I’m not covering solitary carnivores in this guide.)

Tank/Enclosure. If it fits a betta, it’ll fit plenty of snails. BETTAS DO NOT LIVE IN BOWLS OR CUBES. Snails can however, go wild with that. If you’re going to send me messages about how your neglected betta is perfectly happy in a painfully small unfiltered tank, don’t bother even reading any further. 

Substrate. I recommend coir. Plain top soil is fine, anything sharp or difficult to burrow in is not a good staple. If you want to use bark chips, mix them into the soil. No wood shavings or sand. Shavings will rot and get dust all over your snails, cedar is toxic and sand is just sand. Would you want to live in a pile of wet sand with no clothes on?

Food. Obviously. Lettuce and cucumber are the staples. Anything from the onion family, pasta, rice, millet and salt can kill your snails very gruesomely. If you pour salt on snails I’ll punch you through my screen. Only feed fruits in moderation. Dandelion leaves are very popular with mine. Never give your snails anything that has been contaminated with pesticides. GMO doesn’t matter in the slightest unless someone creates lettuce that kills snails or some shit like that.

Cuttlebone. Your snails need calcium, no matter how old they are. Don’t pick up cuttle on the beach, it’s riddled with salt.

Obtaining snails:

If you live in the UK, everything is riddled with these snails. If you live in the US, you may not have them in your location, hence the earlier link to a store selling snails. You can buy them from snail farms too, but you’ll have to ask for good stock that hasn’t bred yet, or you’ll get the rejected ones too small for the restaurants.

Don’t ask me how to raise your snails as food.

If it’s winter, you’re going to have trouble finding anything without some effort. Tubes, hollow branches and fences are popular snail hibernation spots. If it’s not winter, you’ve probably passed by thousands already. Get a tub and go searching after it rains, you’ll find plenty.

I got some snails, now what?

Here’s some tips.

Snails wake up at night. Mine start stirring around 11pm, get out a flashlight and watch them go. Yours will have their own schedule.

Snails can get worms, as I mentioned earlier. If you don’t control it, you will literally have centimeters thick layers of worms in your tank, and the only cure is a shitload of bleach. If you’re picking up your snails outdoors, they’re WC and should be decontaminated to an extent. Wash them, feed them pumpkin seeds/ground hemp and keep an eye on them. They should be perfectly fine, but once you’ve got worms, it’s a pain in the ass to get rid of them. Try hauling a 75ltr tank filled with soil and plants down a staircase, through the house, outside to tip the whole thing out and violently attack it with bleach. Then reassemble it again. And push it back upstairs. One worm = thousands of worms, overkill will save you a lot of irritation and sick snails later. Worms fucking suck.

Your snails will breed. My tank is currently a borderline 24/7 snail orgy, and as amusing as that can be, that means a lot of babies. If you’re in the UK, the babies can be dropped outside. If these snails aren’t native to your area, sweep the tank several inches deep for eggs once a week and destroy them. Microwave them, feed them to chickens, etc.

Snails can and do overeat, and will get a nasty stomachache from it, or worse, they will literally eat themselves out of their shells. If one of your snails has been spending a few too many hours glued to that apple slice, you should take it out. They’re like children with candy on Halloween.

Do not tug on your snails by their shells. If they suck down onto the surface when you touch them, scoop them from the front end backwards. Once their head is lifted, the rest will come loose.

Don’t poke their eyes, being poked in the eye hurts. The top two stalks are their eyes, the bottom two are their nose and used as feelers.

If your snail is squeaking or bubbling, put them back down and leave them alone. They’re scared and trying to make you leave them alone. If it happens every time you try to handle them, be patient. They’ll get used to you soon enough, especially with your hands being a warm strange surface to explore. Snails are very curious.

Snails tend to fall a lot, mostly in their sleep. Don’t leave anything sharp in the tank they could crack on. Don’t ever drop your snails. If you’re not sure you can handle them, keep them over a cushion. They will be absolutely traumatized if they fall and smash against the floor, and probably won’t come back out again.

Snails don’t have very good eyesight and they tend to be a bit dumb at times. Don’t trust them to know better all the time, mine have crawled up my hot radiator. Fortunately they weren’t hurt, but they can be burnt very easily. Treat them like dumb little children basically.

Snails love baths. Run them under the tap with some warm water.

Further reference:

Snail Keeping

Snail Keeping Blog

I’m also more than happy to help out, if you need help then feel free to ask away.

[crucifigo]

this happened at midnight-1am enjoy

[mothgoggles-deactivated20210706]

Snails… can… squeak?

[princelamb]

welp i guess im gonna go gather some snails from the garden now

they sound adorable

[lunulata-deactivated20221105]

And now I want snails. Because snails are adorable and I hadn’t realized how easy they are to keep.

[snildren]

I can personally confirm that snails are amazing! They’re super curious and pretty interactive when they’re up and out of their tank!

I love seeing snail positivity on this site, and this is a great guide!!

[hella-free-space]

This has 10k reblogs. Bless. Snails are super cool!! They’re in my list of cutie land inverts I wanna keep ;D

[mydogisabutt]

i feel like i wrote this myself!!! i have 9 snails, which all have names and actual, real personalities and different little quirks! they’re extremely easy to keep, but that’s not saying you just just toss them in a terrarium and wave at them periodically! my 9 common garden snails, who live in “slime town”, are named Lettuce Prince, War Maiden the Destroyer, Black Sabbath, Cyclops (he’s a cyclopian conjoined stalk snail!), Big Booboo, Band-aid (someone had stepped on him, a little time with a cuttlebone helped!), Clumsy, Pebble, and Sprout. prince was my first snail, and he’s super duper social and loves to eat! he’ll spend most of his time munching alongside his best friend and bae, cyclops.  sabbath, who has a nearly completely black shell, wiggles his eye stalks like little jazz hands! he’s very curious and loves sticks. war maiden the destroyer will scrape your fingers with her lil’ mouth. she also likes to sabotage other snails so she can get the best part of the lettuce. she does this by climbing on top of them band-aid and booboo enjoy each other’s company and i head-cannoned that they’re father and son because they both had messed up shells at one time. booboo when from a tiny smashy baby to the biggest snail in slime town clumsy cannot for the life of him travel in a straight line, usually running into sprout, who was teeny itsy bitsy for a longggg time until he discovered the magical powers of the cuttlebone cyclops and prince had babies recently! there are 27 of them! they’re in their own holding tank for the time being. really, snails are a perfect, adorable, interesting pet!