Homes beach, Anna Maria
It took some digging.......
baadump bum chhhh (mum I know you got that one) but I finally found the beach mom took Jamie and I to...(cough) 21 years ago when we went to visit our grandparents in Palmetto. I thought it would be fun to take Luke back. Turns out it was on the other side of Anna Maria from our favorite beach.
Luke had a great time digging in the sand while Joel hunted down some wild life to play with...I mean......... investigate.
Luke and I investigating the wild life Joel found
It was one of the bravest hermit crabs we have pulled from the sea. Or maybe his shell was a little too small. Either was we were fascinated with such a close encounter. Honestly I'm not sure who was more excited, Luke or me. I held back on sharing them all, but I must have take 20 photos of this friendly little crustacean
They do not usually venture this far out of their shell, especially when they are being man handled so much. He may have been trying to make a crawl for it, I don't know. We did eventually let him go, and I promise he was still in good working order.
I wish I had the picture of me on the beach my mom took, because I am pretty sure it looks just like the picture above of Luke walking away.
Joel and Luke enjoying the new swing set.
We decided to go over to the other side and watch the sun set on our favorite spot at Anna Maria.
Luke finds new friends where ever he goes. He ran around with this boy digging holes and playing trucks. It was a nice end to the day.
Little Luke headed to the office.....lab....pond. Our naturalist takes his sample collection seriously.
Sample of what you ask? Tadpoles, lots and lots of tadpoles. We were investigating the second link in the metamorphosis of an egg to a frog. We got to watch these guys grow from a chain of eggs, literally being attached to the edge of the pond by mama frog. A very cool thing to come across. Then a broken chain of eggs floating close together. Then thousands of little tadpoles. This is when we scooped them up for a closer look.
We later watched them turn into polliwogs, then the cutest little frogs. They were everywhere! I have no doubt the local predator population eats well these few months.
All of the black in the picture below are tadpoles.
We also found some more very new turtles. This never gets old! They are so much fun to watch, and hold, and liberate.
Luke and Joel enjoying an afternoon stroll/ bike ride
