The Animals of Maine

I bet you thought I was talking about Marni and Stella, right?

Well, in this case, I'm talking about the little wild creatures that played a big part in this year's Maine vacation.

Number One: Sara the Ladybug...

Stella has always loved ladybugs. She finds them. Befriends them. Let's them crawl all over her. This year she found a ladybug and named her Sara.

Stella brought her home from the beach and made Sara a little house in the basement. She would go down and visit her and bring her upstairs into the cottage to "play" with everyone else. She had me look up on the Internet what ladybugs eat so that she could feed Sara (they eat aphids). She even took Sara on car rides.

A couple of days later Stella came up from the basement with sad news. She took Lisa aside and told her "Sara has passed". Then Stella burst into tears. She didn't want anyone to mention Sara's name or even talk about ladybugs after that. The next day we said prayers and buried Sara.

Number Two: Hermit Crabs...

I've been going to Old Orchard Beach for 54 years and I never knew we had hermit crabs in the surf. But our neighbor, Patrick, knew. He and his kids caught a few, which greatly amused my kids.

It took me a few days to see the hermit crabs in the surf myself. But the first person to catch one was Stella. She picked up the shell, saw it was occupied, and promptly shrieked and threw it back in the surf. When she regained her composure she located it again and placed it in a bucket. Shortly after that, I caught one. We placed my crab into the bucket. They didn't like each other and began to fight. But it was fascinating to watch.

Luckily for the crabs, we enforced a catch-and-release policy so that the crabs didn't end up dead in our basement like Sara the ladybug.

Number Three: Sharks...

While taking Stella, Marni and cousin Tyler on a trip to Camp Ellis, Lisa stumbled upon the Downeast Maine Shark Tournament. Fishermen were bringing in the shark catches and displaying them on the town dock. It was fascinating and a bit gruesome, but the kids (mostly) enjoyed it. When the knives came out for "cutting up" time, Lisa quickly moved the curious kids along to the next activity.

Number Four: Crabs...

Crabby Marni

Not hermit crabs. Real crabs.

For the past few years we've watched other families catching little (4-5 inch) green crabs at the Camp Ellis town dock. Looked like a lot of fun.

This year we did it ourselves.

Over the weeks, we gathered little nets and ropes. The kids were very excited. On "crabbing day" we grabbed a bucket and our other supplies and headed for the dock. The nice lady at the bait shop gave the girls free chopped up frozen fish ("Disgusting" according to Marni). I put the fish into two nets (along with a rock for weight) and attached the nets to the girls' jump ropes.

Don't ask me. That's what they wanted to use.

The crabs were plentiful and after about an hour of fun we had caught about 20. When we were done we let them go.

And according to Stella and Marni... crabbing was the funnest part of the vacation.

This post contains video that is only viewable from the website. So go there!