To see February on its poorly-spelled way, we have a shot from the dead season earlier in the month when virtually nothing existed to photograph, and I pulled out this little find from the Wilmington trip last year. Wandering the beach, I had found a snail shell, weathered heavily by tidal action and boring worms, that had served as an anchor for a small coral colony, and recently came across it again when sorting odds and ends. It’s faintly curious because the coral out-masses the shell by at least 2 to 1, probably more, and makes it distinctly off-balance, but coral attaches to fixed surfaces. As you can see, the coral is opposite the shell opening, covering every smooth surface, so I surmise that the shell itself was attached to something on the side you see here; part of the shell edge that continues out of the frame to the right seems to have an unweathered, freshly broken appearance, so I suspect that’s where it all had been anchored at one time.
And as I was about to start on this post, I glanced at the sidebar where posts from years back on this date can be found, and noticed none at all for last year – which means I missed the end-of-month abstract for February in 2017. A wave of utter dread came over me, as well as firm denial: there’s no way that I could have disappointed my copious readers in that manner. And yet, it remains true; I missed the month end abstract a year ago. There must have been some extenuating circumstance then, some loss of internet service or thing of that nature, because not only is my post missing, I have no missives about this lack from my readers either! I’m sure your mind is boggling at this very idea as much as mine is. So to all of those who attempted to alert me to this apparent oversight, I apologize profusely, but your efforts never made it through the mysterious barrier to communication that existed then.
Better late than never, as the saying goes, which I believe was originally a reference to menstruation. I herewith rectify this egregious lack, and provide a month-end abstract for February 2017, indeed actually taken within that month – I strive for authenticity. This is a crop from a larger frame to enhance the abstractedness of the subject, and somehow spellcheck did not even blink on that word. I mean, it actually underlined “pre-existing” [again], and who hasn’t heard of that?
I’m often unsure how obvious, or not, any given photo is, but I suspect this one is helped a little by the reflection of the clouds. Anyway, it’s an old pine limb extending from the water, doing its best impression of an angelfish, though perhaps one with a lot of tumors on its side. Being in deep shade the limbs came out silhouetted against the sunny sky reflection. Yeah, I’ve done better, but remember: February. Easily the least productive month for me, at least until I move to the southern hemisphere.