a seaweed tale

Friday was a day of fun at the cabin with the Goodmans, Grandma & Papa. After swimming & tubing, Jenna and her cousins decided it would be fun to pull up a bunch of seaweed and pile it in a boat. They worked at it for quite a while & managed to accumulate quite a big, stinky harvest.

But then came the dilemma of what to do with the big, stinky pile (yes, it REALLY stinks). The kids had been told at the beginning of their project that they would need to put it in the wheelbarrow & haul it to the woods. They initially agreed to this condition, but as one cousin put it, they "didn't think they'd really have to do it". Heh heh. Wrong.

So they worked together to transport the seaweed and throw it into the woods by the armfuls. This part was really NOT as much fun as pulling it out of the lake...until..........

They reached the bottom of the rusty antique wheelbarrow and found a crayfish that had been pulled up with the seaweed! None of us could remember ever finding a crayfish at the lake, so this was pretty exciting!

The cousins put him in a little pool for a while and had a fun time watching him do crayfish acrobatics. He was a really great little critter!! Of course we try to teach our kids to treat the critters they catch with kindness. Sadly, their kindness brought tragic results this time. The kids decided to set "Mr. Crab" free by gently placing him in the water off the end of the dock, where he instantly became dinner for several cannibal fish.

Ugh. Another cold, cruel lesson about the "circle of life". But I think Mr. Crab would say he was happy to have fulfilled his dream of seeing the world outside of his watery home. That's what I tell myself anyway. :)