Jellies in a bucket

We headed to French Creek beach this Saturday to enjoy the sunshine and test out the waters and the sand. The water was rather murky, but we ventured in anyway, with more than one exclamation of "Ew, there's seaweed in my shoe!" It wasn't until I was up to my waist that I saw the jellies! They were all around, just bobbing in the tide, about the size of donuts. I didn't know what kind of jellies they were, so I, Arwen on hip, waded out and called the boys out as well, just in case. We caught a few jellies and put them in a bucket and just hung out with them for an hour or so. I have no idea if they were dead or alive, but they sure were pretty! Our book called them "water jellies" or "bicycle jellies".

Pics from the Bog...

Caddisfly larva

Ok, so this isn't our photo, but ours are very similar (albeit more out of focus). We journeyed to Hamilton Marsh and saw, among other things, these weird bunches of twigs and grasses that seemed to be moving around, but when you pulled them out, they were just, it seemed, very wet pinecone? or dead drowned and mutilated bumblebees? No, as it turns out, they are Caddisfly larva. We must have plucked 6 or so out of the water before we realized that they were playing games with us, holing up inside their little nests until we put them back.

Meet the kittens! ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ

In honour of Nunavut's 10th anniversary, we've officially named this little guy Iqaluit. (If you need a pronounciation, follow this link). I hope as much as possible to write his name in the Inukitut script, as you can see in the title.

Meet the kittens! "Racky"

Ioan insists on calling this little grey guy Racky. I have no idea what his real name will be, but he sure looks like my old friend Calvin Klein.

Meet the kittens! The Auroras

I temporarily named these little guys Aurora Borelais and Aurora Australis. The are both showing their calico flames in this photo, but from what I can see, the rest of their faces are black. The very striking feature is that the flames are on opposite sides of their faces, and they just made me think of the northern and southern lights. Ioan asked me what causes the auroras, and I had to wiki it, but he lost interest when I had to delve into magnetosphere.

Dried Batstar

Well, we found batman here dried out on the beach and brought him home for our collection. Unfortunately, dried up batstar doesn't look as decorative as dried up seastar. In fact, dried up batstar looks kind of like a hunk of dried flesh. I guess it makes sense, since the sea star is rough like sand paper, while the batstar feels more like the flesh on the roof of your mouth. Oh well...it is a sample none the less. It didn't die in vain...no, it is furthuring homelearning science...

Dogwinkles

Ilya and I found some lovely wrinkled dogwinkles (it's not as bad as it sounds...just a snail) at Columbia Beach. As well, we came upon some collections of the egg sacks of the dogwinkles as well. (above...no, it is not a serving of orzo and oyster...)
The wrinkly little guy at the bottom is our very favorite!!

Down by the bay...

Have you ever seen a deer, scratching his ear??? Great pics by Ilya of the deer behind Grandma's house..

Isaac's Glamour Shot

Ioan took this first shot of Isaac (formerly called by his buddy's name, Iggy, in this blog...oops!) the ferret...we hadn't expected to see either ferret. We've always suspected that in the bottom of their cage (where you can't see) they have a big screen HDTV with satellite and a PVR...which means they only come up for popcorn and potty breaks. I guess it was Isaac's turn to get the munchies...

Ioan found a turtle

We were at NIWRA and Ioan had his heart set on finding a turtle. I was a little concerned that he'd be disappointed, but luckily for us, this little guy was out sunning himself. Arwen's book is a little kids size 7, so it gives you a perspective to how big he was....

Kelp crab

This is a kelp crab. We found it on Qualicum Beach.

It was a weird and pokey crab shell.
This is not the original shell, but it's similar.
If it was a super crab, I would call it "Wolverine crab".

It is also known as a "Spider Crab".
Post by Ilya and Nik