FIRST SNOW FALL OF THE WINTER!
We had our first snow of the season yesterday, but unfortunately by the time I got out to record the event, most of the snow had melted! I did find this "Christmas buoy" which you may see again, and used it to offset the little bit of snow I found. The wind and sun had blown or melted the small amount of snow on the shoreline. Further from the shore, we had a nice whitening of the fields and beautiful white edging on all trees and shrubs. The temperature was in the mid 20's this morning, coldest so far.

However, we have had a full moon and that means extremely low tides - two incentives to be out to experience both. I walked the beaches on the north end of the island, not finding a lot of sealife - no sanddollars on its beach. I did turn over a rock and found a large moon snail wedges underneath. I pulled it out, knocking the sand out of its opening, and put it in my pocket. (I can't resist Moonsnail shells!). I carried the shell home, and once inside, found the shell and rinsed it out under the faucet. That was when I had a surprise. Out dropped a live crab! Here I was washing it in fresh water! I hurriedly returned it to the shell and placed it in the refrigerator, hoping it would survive until I could return it to the sea. I remembered to take it with me the next day, and placed it in a salty puddle on Lagoon Beach. It slightly moved, but I blanketed it in seaweed and wished it well. I couldn't help but smile and think, I wonder if it was masquerading as a Hermit Crab! Here is the crab and its temporary Moonsnail shell home..look carefully, the crab is camouflaged.

Another adventure I had this week was on the Orange Trail. I hiked down on the north end where there are cliffs. For a minute I thought a beaver had climbed and chewed these tree roots! Then I looked higher, and there were patches of chewed bark high on tree trunks. Beaver don't climb trees, but porcupines do! I found more trees where these rodents had dined, and climbed down to check the activity in their dens below. Sure enough, you could see where they had left paths and entered rocky crevices, of which there were quite a few. Several had the distinctive piles of scat at the entrances, a characteristic of porcupines. I looked in the trees, mostly spruce, but didn't see the chewers. If I had had snow, their tracks would have added to the evidence.

Up until now, the ground has not been frozen and is really wet. This has meant that trees are vulnerable to the high winds we often get up here on the shore. Just walking from Sanddollar Beach to Sailboat Beach, I had to climb around about 5 large keeled over trees. They just couldn't withstand the force of the wind. 12/5/06 Blown around Ronnie.