Foggy Easy day! (done at Noon)

Today, it was really foggy. I got up at 5 A.M. and we got to the wharf at about 5:30 A.M. It was pretty foggy when we got to the wharf. We went straight to the lobster-boat from the docks because we already had bait, so we didnt need to get any this morning. We were only doing single traps today, and i filled a lot of bait bags on the way out. As we were hauling traps, i tried to fill more bait bags than we were putting in the traps, so that i could have some for tomorrows work.

Today was easy because we were not using any rock-fish, so i only needed bait bags to fill. This made it much easier. The only reason that we weren't using rock fish today was because, we didn't have any left, because the wharf ran out, and we got the last 9 packages of rock fish yesterday, and they were all used up by the end of yesterday.

We caught a huge female lobster, and it had shell disease. Shell disease is caused by pollution in the water, and the only way a lobster can get rid of shell disease, is if the lobster sheds its old shell, before the lobster dies. The lobster was huge, and its tail was really big also.

Ill be posting a Learner page on how to cook lobsters tomarrow.

-August 19, Wednesday.

Hard Workin Day (we found a huge lobster!)

Yesterday, me, Oma, and Aunt Pennie, had a fire outside in the fire pit. We roasted marshmallows. I went to sleep yesterday night, at 9 P.M. because Uncle Art was going to wake me up 30 minutes earlier than usual, at 4:30 A.M. so i wanted to get some more sleep than usual.

The fire last night!

 This morning, i woke up, and had another bagel, (now all of my bagels are gone). I made a sandwich because Uncle Art said we were going to get home later than usual, at 2 P.M. I also brought some pretzels filled with peanut butter. Today, were were hauling doubles, and about 35 single traps. Where the double traps are located, it is about 20 minutes away from shore, about 3 miles off shore. So... while we were going to the double traps, i was busy filling the yellow bait bags. (the yellow bait bags are bigger, and have smaller netting openings, so they hold bait way better. I filled a TON of bags, i filled all of the bait bags that we had on the boat at the time.

When we were hauling traps, we found another small lobster, that was so small, that it was smaller than the lobster measure itself! Uncle Art could just hold it in his hand, and it was so cute, and it had tiny little claws! We also hauled up a huge lobster, that had shell disease, which is a disease of the lobsters shell, but it was still really big! Its crusher claw was bigger than my hand!

The small lobster!

This is the huge lobster that had shell disease (its huge)

Every-time we hauled a double trap, i would always do one trap (get all the lobsters from it, and bait it) and Uncle Art would do the other one. Sometimes Uncle Art would help me with the lobster part if i was filling bait bags or something. We had our sandwiches for lunch, and then we hauled single traps. Single traps are so much easier compared to double traps.

We got home at about 2, and then i took a shower. Today, my Mom, Dad, Levi, and Grandma were all coming over to Aunt Pennies house to have lobster for dinner. Aunt Pennie has a whole set of plates and other stuff that we use when we are eating lobster. She has some lobster themed table wear, and lobster plates!

Lobster silverware thing, used to break the shells of lobster claws (i think)

Lobster Plates!!!!

Tomorrow, i think it will be an easier day, and we will probably only haul singles, but please give ideas for more "Learner posts"


-August 18, Tuesday

Learn about The House

Today, i will be teaching you about The House, and mainly the things that The House has outside, because inside, the house is just a house. The first thing that is out side, is a huge amount of lobster traps that Uncle Art keeps outside. There is a huge wall of lobster traps that he keeps, and then he also has the place where he works on his traps, with a lot of buoys, and lobster traps stacked up right next to him.

Wall of traps

This is where Uncle Art works on his traps.

Another thing outside, by the wall of traps, there is a shed, just for storing things. There is also a chicken coop, that holds the chickens that we have. We get about 6-8 eggs every day, and Levi, loves to go and collect the eggs.

Shed

This is the chicken coup, there is a whole area of space behind it with a fence around it so the chickens can play.

Their is another bigger storage shed, by the cloth line, and the huge willow looking tree. That holds all of the big things, that we only need for special occasions, like tents and other stuff. Behind the house, is a big outside balcony, that has a table and chairs, and its really cool. There is also the screen room, which is kind of outside and kind of inside at the same time.

This is the shed by the cloth line,and the willow looking tree.

This is behind the house, the balcony,and the screen room.

This is the screen room, where we have a little table and couch, and there is a lot of cool things here, like found bottles, cool crab shells, cool shells found, pieces of driftwood, and anything cool that Uncle Art, or Aunt Pennie found, by the beach.

Behind the house, we have a huge back yard. There is an area of water that connects to the sea that me and Uncle Art fish at. There is also a cool wooden pine tree made out of driftwood. There is a small pond, with a row-boat, and also a playground, and a baseball diamond.

This is the backyard of my house in maine, with a pond, and the area of water connecting to the sea (left)

This is the area of the back yard that has the playground, the pond, and the baseball diamond, if you walk back really far!

This is the cool pine tree that is made out of driftwood.

This is the area of water that comes around the land, and is connected to the Sea.

I hope you enjoyed this learner post!

-August 17, Monday

Easy Day! (seal was following our boat)

Today, was a pretty easy day. I got up at 5 again, and had another bagel. We then drove down to the wharf, and it was really foggy. It was so foggy, that we could not see the water from the road by the wharf. Uncle Art, looked out on the water and said "This is as foggy as it gets" and it was really foggy. Uncle Art needed some more rock-fish to load onto the lobster-boat for today, so instead of just sitting in a chair while he went to go get the boat, i helped get the rock-fish into the trays, by getting each box of rock-fish, and getting the rock-fish out of the box, and then putting all of the boxes in the trash bin. I got some pictures of the wharf this morning.

Its really foggy at the wharf!

ITS REALLY FOGGY!

I cant even see the water off of the docks!

It started to get a little bit better.

During the day, it started to get better because the sun came out and it got really hot. On the boat, the first part of the day, we were not getting a lot of lobsters. Yesterday, I had filled a lot of bait bags so i would have them to use today, and this morning, i filled a lot of bait bags, while we were cursing out to our first trap, so during the majority of the day, i did not have to fill the bait bags, which was really nice. We didn't get a lot of lobsters the first part of the day, so i had little breaks in-between traps. The last part of the day, we started to get more and more lobsters.

One time, we saw a seal, following our boat, eating the rotten fish that we dump over the side of the boat every trap we get. Seals like that rotten fish. I got a picture of him, or at least, i tried to. We also got a lot of conch shells in our lobster traps sometimes. They have snails living inside of them, and they are about the sise of a golf ball. I have a picture from online, compared to the picture that i took.

This is a picture of conch shells from online!

These are the conch shells found in the lobster traps.

We got all of these conch shells in one trap! I just had to take a picture of them! Here is the picture of the seal following our boat.

This is the seal under water.

This is the seal popping its head up above the water following us!

Since the first part of the day, we were not getting a lot of lobsters, i was able to do my system where i do the trap, then the lobsters, then the bait bag, in that order. That system does a good job of getting everything it needs to get done on time every trap that we pull up. We were able to get through a lot of traps, in a smaller amount of time than usual. We got done around Noon again. We got home at about, one because we needed to re-fill the boat with more bait for tomarrow.

One other thing, when you haul a trap, sometimes there is a skeleton of a rockfish still there, because the lobsters did not eat it, and sometimes there is just a skull, or just a body, but i found a whole part, and it looks really cool!

Leftovers of the rockfish found in the trap.

 -August 17, Monday

Day off today! (went on a boat ride with my family)

Today, I had a day off, so I could sleep in! I slept in until 7:25 A.M. It was awesome not waking up at 5 A.M. When I got up, I played some xbox until 10 A.M. when i had breakfast. For breakfast, i had bacon, and 4 scrambled eggs with hot sauce on them. They were really good! After breakfast, i read 2 chapters in The Scarlet Letter for school, and then me and Oma discussed it.

Later in the day, at about 2:30 P.M. me, Uncle Art, Aunt Pennie, Oma, Grandma, my dad, my mom, and my brother Levi, went on a boat ride on the lobster boat. My brother really wanted to band a lobster, but unfortunately, it was Sunday, which means we could not haul any traps today. We rode around the islands, and we saw some islands with houses on them with amazing views.

This has a house that has a light house, and you can rent this whole place! It even comes with a boat and a driver to get to shore!

This is an island with a few houses on it and they own a ton of land on the island, and have a ton of trails in the forest!

My dad got a picture of me standing on the side of the boat. I also took a selfie on the front of the boat, because i love to go onto the front of the boat while were going because its really windy. My oma was also brave enough to go onto the front of the boat with me and Levi. We took pictures!

Me standing on the lobster boat!

Me and my brother, and my Oma on the front of the boat!

Selfie! My bro looks confused. 

While we were on the boat, we passed by a small island, that had only one small cabin on it, and you could go out on the island, and spend the night on the island in the house, with no running water, for a night. It looked really fun, and we might do that next Thursday night! We passed by some rocks, with some seals on it. We were able to get REALLY close to the seals, it was so cool! On the way back, the engine started to make a funny noise, and it turned out that we got a buoy and its rope stuck around the propeller of the boat. Uncle Art did not know how this happened because he has a gate around his propeller so that nothing gets tangled up in it. We put the boat in reverse, and were able to pull some of the rope out of the propeller, but we eventually, just had to cut it off, and we were going to have to call a diver to go check it out later.

We caught a buoy!

Levi likes the buoy!

We saw seals!

After the boat ride, we got to go home, and we were going to have a huge dinner of scallops, but i just decided to have a sandwich, because i do not like lobster, or scallops, or any seafood really. 

-August 16, Sunday (Learner Post tomarrow!)

Learn about the Tides

The tides, are when the waters of the sea, rise and fall, because of the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun. The tides usually happen twice a day. Gravity is what makes everything stay on the earth, but since water is just a liquid, the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun, can actually make the water rise and fall. The moons gravitational pull is just enough to raise the water of the seas, but nothing else.

The moon pulls the sea water up a little bit, that kind of makes a bulge in each side of the earth. This is high tides.

One side of the earths high tides is caused by the moons gravity, and the other side of the earths high tides is caused by the principle of inertia. It is really complicated to explain, but imagine that you are spinning a rope with something fairly heavy on the end of the rope. Imagine that the earth is in the middle of you and the heavy object at the end of the rope. Since you are spinning, you need to lean back to balance out the heavy object at the end of the rope, and your spinning. This is the same with the moon and the rotation of the earth. If the earth is spinning, and the moons gravitational pull is pulling the sea one way, the other side of the earth needs to have the same effect as the moon, but on the completely other side of the earth.

The moon is what mainly causes the tides, but the suns gravitational pull, can very the tides by either making them a little higher than normal, or a little lower than normal. The sun can only affect the tides a little bit, because the sun, is way farther away from the earth than the moon, so the sun can not effect the tides as much as the moon can.

When the sun and the moon are aligned in a straight line, so that they are on-top of each-other, the tides are a little larger than normal, because the suns gravity is helping the moons gravity by pulling the water bulge from the earth, making the tides a little bit bigger than normal. These tides are called spring tides, and they happen on Full, or New moons.

The sun helps the moons gravity enhance the tides just a little bit.

When the sun, and the moon, are at a 90 degree angle from each other, the sun, actually makes the tides a little bit smaller than they would usually be. This is because, the sun, is pulling the earths water towards itself, where the tides would be low usually, but the sun makes the tides smaller where the moons gravity is pulling. This happens on the quarter moons, and this is called neap tides.

The sun, is pulling on the low tide part of the earth, making the moons
effect of high tides, less effective, so the high tides are lower than usual.

The moon rotates around the earth 13 times a year, and this means that every day, the tides will happen twice, once every 12 hours and 25 minutes, (the 25 minutes makes up for the one year added extra to the moons rotation around the earth 13 times a year)


I hope you enjoyed this Learner post, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!


-August 16, Sunday (blog later today)

Learn about Lobsters (Learner Post)

Lobsters, are some of the weirdest animals around! They taste with their legs, and they have teeth inside of their stomach. They also, don't have brains! Since the lobsters stomach, is right behind its eyes, the teeth of a lobster are located inside of its stomach. The lobster has 2 main claws, 8 walking legs, a crusher claw, and a pincher claw. The crusher claw, is made to crush objects, and is big and has more muscles. The pincher claw, is longer than the crusher claw, and is used for holding on to things.  The lobster has 8 swimmerets, located on its abdomen. The swimmerets, are like tiny fins below its body, used to swim.

The tail of a lobster, can curl up to its body, and then un-curl back out to its full length. If the lobster does this really fast, it can swim really fast with its tail.  The female lobsters eggs, are located under its abdomen, in-between its swimmerets.  The female lobsters, are the mean lobsters, and will try to kill other lobsters if they get annoyed.  The walking legs are small legs, that the lobster uses to walk, and on the end of each walking leg, is a tiny claw, used to grab stuff, and for defense.  

Lobsters do have nervs, but, lobsters do not feel pain. This part is very interesting; lobsters do have reflex's to what would be considered pain to them. When someone gets hurt, they instantly have a reflex to the pain, whatever it is, but the actual pain is what comes after the reflex when the pain reaches the brain. Since lobsters have no brains, they only have reflex's to pain, but can not actually feel the pain.

If a lobster looses a certain limb, or claw, the lobsters can regenerate them. It usually takes about 5 years for a lobster to regenerate a claw that had been chopped off, but they can do it. 

Regenerating Claw.

Some cool facts about lobsters:

1. We have found lobsters living up to 100 years!
2. Lobsters can grow as big as 4 ft long and 40-50 Lbs.
3. If lobsters desperately need more food, they can feed off of smaller lobsters
4. Lobster blood is clear, not red like ours
5. Lobsters, can not survive in fresh water
6.