We were invited to visit our friends Justin and Denise Loeber at their beach house in York, Maine for a second year in a row. You may remember that I lost almost all my photos from that trip last year, but this year I have several photos to share, thankfully.
But a closer look shows what look like tiny black barnacles at the base of each plant. And, from all I can gather about these topics online, I think the barnacles must have attached themselves to the rocks "first" and then seaweed anchored almost as quickly to the barnacles and started growing out from there. The two appear to be one, but I think that just illustrates how inter-related the plants and animals are in this ecosystem.
Bright green seaweed grows so prolifically in these shallow tidal pools because of the abundance of sunlight.
These sea snails are also called periwinkles or just winkles, for short, and in many parts of the world they are collected just as Norah is doing, by hand, but then eaten. And, come to find out, they aren't actually native to North America. It seems that they came over, originally, attached to rocks used to weigh down sailing ships in the 1700s. But, now, they are so abundant on the coasts of New England that you would assume they were always here... Incredible.
The baby woke up very early in the mornings. We decided to go for walks so as not to wake up the sleeping house. But, the invigorating walks made us hungry, naturally, and the kids are always starving first thing in the morning, so we stopped in here for their breakfast special. $3.95 per person for eggs, toast, half a dozen chunks of greasy potato and a slice of bacon. The food was terrible, actually, but somehow the sea air and the hilarious fry cook made it a place you'd want to come back to again and again.
You could climb down the rocks next to the road to this "private" beach separated from the larger beach by rocks.

I helped her collect snails by laying flat on a rock and reaching down into this pool left in the rocks by the tides.
I found that larger snails were easier to grab in the first place, but harder to get off the rocks because they had a stronger suction.
This day, we didn't even have an applesauce cup, so we found a cleft in the rock filled with water and collected the snails there. If you watched closely, you could see them bunch together slowly.
For all the doubts I have as I raise these girls, I feel that I must be doing something right because instead of hauling off and hitting one another, they haul off and hug... often.

There's a story (and a lot of giggles) to go along with this picture. Our neighbor, who is also a fireman in Waterbury, gave us a bottle of his homemade wine. We brought it to "share" with our hosts and the other guests. So, Justin drew a label and attached it with the only adhesive we had on hand: band-aides...
While the women went to lunch with the baby, Dwayne and the men took Norah and Charlie to Nubble Lighthouse to climb rocks and site see.







Avril plays hard to get, but she really does love, love, love Mrs. Denise.
Smile for Mommy! My family poses for me one morning, while we were hanging out outside until everyone else woke up.

There was another couple, The Burns, who stayed while we did. We enjoyed getting to know them. But, they had to leave really early the last morning, so we didn't get a photo of them, unfortunately.
The beautiful beach house they shared with us.
Norah looks for more snails.
There's a story (and a lot of giggles) to go along with this picture. Our neighbor, who is also a fireman in Waterbury, gave us a bottle of his homemade wine. We brought it to "share" with our hosts and the other guests. So, Justin drew a label and attached it with the only adhesive we had on hand: band-aides...
After lunch, we met up with the men for ice cream at Brown's. It's too hard to explain here, so I think it will have to remain an inside joke, but we will always laugh out loud about our children and "That's what I wanted to do with it!"
Avril plays hard to get, but she really does love, love, love Mrs. Denise.
There was another couple, The Burns, who stayed while we did. We enjoyed getting to know them. But, they had to leave really early the last morning, so we didn't get a photo of them, unfortunately.
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Just a few weeks ago, we were discussing our next vacation and I vowed our next would be somewhere with tidal pools! Can't wait.