Tag Archives: hike

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Anomiidae

Walking the beach with a friend a couple of mornings ago, I keep finding shells with a dark marking in the center of the interior and nice shiny interior. Then I find a shell with the other half attached. The other half has a hole in it.

I look it up. This site comes up: http://www.bily.com/pnwsc/web-content/Northwest%20Shells.html. Wow. We filter through it and the shell is in the family Anomiidae. Specifically Pododesmus macrochisma, aka Green False Jingle. It attaches to rocks or other jingles or whatever through the hole. Then it disguises itself. The outside of the shells I found was diverse, some with barnacles. I found a young one, pink, and the radial ridges are visible on the shell.

Cool! Next I tried to identify the two different kinds of chitons. Uh-oh. There are LOTS of chitons. I run out of air very quickly. I will save the chitons for another day. I also returned two sea cucumbers to the sea. The second one scrunches up when I pick her up with a piece of seaweed. When I put the second one in the water, she relaxes. The first one was probably already dead.

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home

We walked the beach on Marrowstone Island yesterday. It’s amazing how different the rocks and shellfish are there compared to North Beach. We are looking for agates, but I got interested in some of the shellfish. My zoology is pretty out of date, but you can find so much on the internet. Then it becomes overwhelming. I look up one creature and find that there are twenty species and can I figure out which one? Sometimes I think so and sometimes I don’t!

I like this shell. The original owner is gone and then barnacles lived there and a seaweed is attached. I am sure there are all sorts of microscopic critters too. I have my microscope and will start looking at the tiny creatures too. Wonderful.

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conglomerate

This is for the Tuesday Ragtag Daily Prompt: a conglomerate. Can you guess what is under this community of organisms stuck all over it?

A marine engine. My friend is pointing out the water intake and how to tell it’s a marine engine.

So this is a stealthie too, of both him and me.

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you know you are hypoxic when

Darn it. I went from two months of no hiking or beach walking to too fast too much… oops. Injured left tibialis anterior. Oxygen AND a boot. Dang blang curses… guess I have to behave slightly better.

Another outfit not appropriate for work: on the morning before the boot…. I am holding out my hand to be kissed. That area on my lower left shin is red… and later in the day I got in with ortho and got the boot.

flowered dress with long beads and above the elbow white gloves, hey, put that oxygen back on!
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elevated eagle

For today’s Ragtag Daily Prompt: elevate.

Walking the beach this past week, we saw this eagle. We thought he or she was pretty happy. Why?

First, there were patches of little fish on the beach.

patches of little fish on the beach: dead fish

We discussed the fish. Did they get chased by a predator and get left by a receding wave? Interesting.

Then we wondered why there were no gulls eating the little fish. No birds eating the little fish at all.

And then we figured out why:

Dead seagull wings and beak and not much else left.

Oh, we thought. Amazing how much the gull looked like a dead angel at first.

And a bit further along the beach, the eagle sat, looking very happy. Mmmm, seagull.

The happy eagle.

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Rialto Beach

Two days ago I walked on Rialto Beach with a friend. It was totally gorgeous. One of those days when people visiting the Olympic Peninsula want to move here, only to find that those days are less common than the grey mat in the sky just over the house….

The colors were just intense. I did not adjust the color at all. The program sometimes offers me a retouched photograph but I always think the colors are just off and wrong.

I wore my oxygen, via concentrator. I have about 3.5 hours per battery. We were on the second battery by the time we got back.

My pack was also full of rocks. B is particular: he wants clear or nearly clear agates. I am currently a generalist about rocks: I am fascinated by the not clear agates, some quartz, jasper, poppyseed jasper… anyhow, I am rather a magpie right now about rocks. Ooooo, shiny!

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get real girl

While I organize, I find things. Most of the barbies apparently got blown up with firecrackers one time when I was not home. Both of my children were involved with this. “Not the babies,” says my daughter. “Also not the Get Real Girl, since she is yours.”

Well, the Get Real Girl is the camping one, with backpack, GPS, camping stove, frying pan and fried eggs. Apparently she is not a vegan. She acquired the diving equipment from a barbie set and was all ready to go in the water (no wet suit though) when one of the barbie babies landed in her lap. Gosh, now what! As you can see, they seem to be bonding even though Get Real is not going diving today. I will have to see if there is another Action Figure around the house that could hold the baby while Get Real dives….

We had another Get Real Girl, one who plays basketball. I have found a lower leg and foot. I suspect that she met her fate with the barbies, poor thing. Maybe my kids will give me another Get Real Girl for Christmas…..