Strawberry moon

plus heat waves, clam shells, and fiber art

Did you see the strawberry supermoon? It was beautiful here at the beach, where we could see its reflection (through some clouds) on the water. The strawberry moon is our last supermoon of the year (a supermoon appears larger because it is a full moon that happens at its perigee, or closest point to Earth).

The Old Farmer’s Almanac can give you a moon phase calendar customized to your town or zip code. And if you missed the moon last night, or it was too cloudy to see, it will still look beautiful (and almost-full) tonight.

Here’s a helpful video about the supermoon, including why we know it as the strawberry moon:

We’ve had mild temperatures and sunny weather for the rest of our beach trip—a high of about eighty degrees, breezy. But in many parts of the country, the heat is record-breaking and dangerous. The Southwest had a brutal heat wave earlier this month, and Seattle (Seattle!) is now breaking high temperature records.

I thought that this New York Times article, which focused on outdoor workers and families without air conditioning, was a useful, sobering way to look at a day in scorching, above-110 degree heat. This fact sheet from Dosomething.org is also a helpful kid-level introduction to the dangerous impacts of hear waves—and maybe a good place to find ways to help.

We’ve also been shelling, and have noticed many broken clam shells with thick, striated layers. In clam shells, the layers of the shell are like the rings of a tree—each one shows a year, and the years can tell you something about ocean conditions of the past. Quahog clams can live five hundred years (they are the longest-lived non-colony animal known to science!). Scientists use the oldest quahogs to learn about the changing environment—this article from The Conversation is a great, short intro to that study.

And finally, we visited the North Carolina aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores—we petted sting rays, examined frogs and snakes, watched sharks and jellies swimming in huge tanks. And we saw some amazing tapestries by local fiver artist Eileen Williams, whose intricate work gave us new ideas about how to make pictures with fabric. Williams used lace for sea spray, velvet for cattails, and tiny sewn-on shells for detail. You can see more of her work here.

(Mamie photo-bombing one of Eileen Williams’s Art of the Sea tapestries.)

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A joke from Bea:

Q: How does Harriet stay in touch with friends when she’s at the beach?

A: She calls them on her shell phone!

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