Parade!

This has been one of those crazy busy weeks with happenings, some lots of fun, and good, and some very not. So It was amazing to, about twenty minutes ago, pull into the driveway at The Inn*.

The crunch of the gravel drive, the wind off the water causing the ancient tree branches to arch and sway… John said he’d get the dogs out of the back (Marshal insisting he needed out right now!) and I could just head in, turn up the heat and make fires in the fireplaces. All of this sounded so good… until.

Until it was twelve degrees.

But not your average twelve degrees in, like, a normal place.

Twelve salt-water enhanced degrees on the coast of Maine where, I might add, we had nearly spring-like temperatures less than a week ago!

Oh ya, I’ll say it.

Mother Nature?

LIAR!

So after I screamed that in my brain, I pretty much galloped to the door and opened it up. I paid homage to The Radiator I Love, who sits right beside the door and, yes, JoHn ought to worry that I might leave him for this particular piece of old heating-slash-plumbing equipment due to its overall allure on evenings like this.

And then I made this absolutely wacko decision, as JoHn said he’d head to the General Store to get some cream for coffee in the morning, that I would head out and snap a few pics so that I could put them up for you guys.

So I grabbed my camera, and I went out.

Without a coat.

The initial impact was actually fairly non-mind-numbing. It really wasn’t until I got to the water’s edge that things got a little dicey. My sweater, seemingly big and thick and bulkily knit was, in fact, knit.

As in, with little holes in it per… something knit.

So each and every hole was allowing little wind needles in and it was… well… rather uncomfortable.

Which I totally forgot when I realized there was a parade!

I love parades!

When I went down to the water, I snapped the picture above. The little circle-y, oval-y things were moving, totally deliberately, along the shore.

I snapped a few more pics as they headed out around the bend…

Now I’m no marine biologist… or regular biologist. Fine, or scientist… But if you asked me?

Ice jellies.

Those rare jellyfish who are capable of freezing their craniums – which are called ‘exumbrellas’ in jelly fish science terminology – during the winter, rather than being forced to enter the more commonly observed ‘dormant state’.

So.

Ice Jellies.

Or maybe they are just chunks of ice being driven along the shore by a rather strong winter wind.

But, c’mon, which sounds more fun to you?

I know. Me too.

After I snapped those pics, and noodled about science for about fourteen more seconds, the wind needles became even more insistent. And also my face started to hurt and my eyes began crying all on their own and I feared those tears would become stabby icicle projectiles if I waited much longer.

Back inside for me, but not before one final pic…

And with that, I felt myself exhale…

And then ran as fast as I could inside, where two ShepHerds and a fire were waiting.

Thanks for readin’.

*The Inn is the nearly two-hundred year old house on the Maine Coast that we spent more than a decade restoring and renovating. It really was an inn at one time (back in the early 1900s), but is not anymore. We just call it that. So you can’t just come and stay over, because that would totally freak us out. :))

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