spring - stone - sky

can i post too many cloud photos? (i am guessing yes, but they never cease to be beautiful to me, especially over the ocean). also the largest poppy ever (probably my favorite flower, followed by lily of the valley). some amazing rocks that are omnipresent here, mitzi was an expert finder of the most amazing ones with perfectly round holes. we also made a rock house last week as the tide crept back up where we had been exploring tidepools and snail activity. when the tide finally chased us away, we ran off the park across the way and romped in the blossom dotted grass. i climbed a tree (and then twisted a muscle in my leg jumping down, that's what i get for being a show-off)

we had some beautiful little moments with the snails and the tide pools. The snails attached to dry rocks appear to be all dried up, as if dead, when you pick one off. But I wondered if they were dead or just waiting for water so i decided to put into in to the shallow tide pool and lo and behold, it's little leg starts to unfurl and extend from it's shell upon contact with water. it seemed to be searching a place to latch onto, to orient itself. it was a bit like those mini-sponges you got sometimes as a kid that would swell up in a full sink of water, magically growing upon immersion. but then, as miette reached toward the snail, wanting to help it to turn itself over, her shadow fell over the snail and it recoiled, shrinking immediately back into itself. no contact whatsoever, just a shift in light. when she moved her hand back it came out from it's shell again. over and over we watched as we would block the sunlight over the snail and it would shrink, remove our hand and see it come back out. and it responded similarly to touching the water's surface or vibrating the ground next to the pool. i was so amazed at the sensitivity of this little creature.