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| Headed to Kent Island on our caretaker's boat, Island Bound |
So I've been a little busy lately. And it shows in the number of blog posts I've been making. But as can happen, life has gotten a little crazy.
Damon and I are embroiled in the midst of our normal annual craziness -- getting ourselves, a dozen undergraduates, all our gear, and most of our food out to Kent Island in New Brunswick. This involves finding a dog-sitter, stopping the mail (although I am realizing just as I write this that I forgot to do that!), packing two giant bins of ratty field clothes, cleaning the house as spotless as possible, reassuring parents, getting our office work done, and then herding cats all the way across the border, onto boats, and over to the island.
Since this regular brand of craziness hasn't pushed us over the top (yet), we decided to add a little more into our lives: we are selling our house in order to downsize to a smaller home (and life). I'll write a bit more about it when the ink is dry, but in essence, we had too much house, not enough warm weather to work on it, and a hankering for "less". In the meantime, it's meant lots of home repairs and staging, paperwork to be signed, and extra stress added to our spring.
That hasn't stopped me from getting out and exploring, but has dug into my writing time by quite a lot. So I'm going to take a little blogging break, in order to get through the next month. We (hopefully, if all goes as planned) pass papers to sell our wonderful house AND buy a little condo on June 19, and after that I feel like I'll be able to breathe again.
Before I go, I wanted to share a terrific visit I had to Pond Cove in Cape Elizabeth with a Meetup group called "
Southern Maine Tide Poolers." This awesome group is the brainchild of Megan McCuller, a young biologist from Portland. It's just a bunch of people who like to look at cool stuff in the ocean, who meet up at dig around in tidepools. Brilliant.
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| Tiny barnacles that have just settled out of the plankton and onto rocks. They love rough surfaces best, so you tend to find them all lined up in the cracks of rocks. Note you can see this pattern in the big ones too. |
We met this month at Pond Cove in Cape Elizabeth. I'd never been there, so it was really exciting to find a new spot to tidepool. This is a great place -- parking at the land trust lot, good rocky tidepools full of cool stuff, and a terrific shallow cobble pool perfect for kids to get into. If you'll forgive me, I'm going to just post some pics and get onto the work I have to do on the island today. But if you like tidepooling, check out the Meetup group -- it was really fun!
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| A tidepool out in the breaking waves |
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| This green crab was carrying eggs -- but was dead. Interestingly, we found TONS of Asian shore crabs and no green crabs. This is a trend I've heard others mention this spring too. What's up with that? |
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| Horse mussels and coralline algae |
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| Poking around in a tidepool |
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| The cobbles are a great place for kids to turn over rocks and find cool stuff |
TO GET THERE: From US1 in Portland, take Rt 77 south; cross the bridge over Portland Harbor. In South Portland, Rt 77 turns right and becomes Ocean St -- do not turn with it but go straight on Broadway to Cottage Rd and turn right. This road becomes Shore Road. After Fort Williams State Park, go another Mile and look for the parking lot for Robinson Woods (thanks Cape Elizabeth Land Trust). Look just across the road; you'll see a path with a little "Pond Cove" sign. Follow this and you're there!
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