weeds from the sea

If my godmother had seen what I saw yesterday morning - she would have gone home for her wheelbarrow and gumboots and taken a few loads home for her garden.

In the early morning I went for a walk along the beach. In fact we walked so long along the beach yesterday I racked up over 14,000 steps.

The beach covered in piles of washed up seaweed.

Nothing exotic - just ordinary stuff. If my godmother had seen this she would have gone home for her wheelbarrow and gumboots and taken a few loads home for her garden.

This golden beauty ⬇️ is Southern Bull Kelp.

And this one is too.

These are the blades of the Bull Kelp.

Imagine these big plants waving about on the bottom of the sea.

Southern bull kelp (Durvillaea potatorum) grows directly from the rocky seabed, not from sand. It anchors itself firmly with a strong, root-like holdfast that grips onto solid rock, usually in the intertidal to shallow subtidal zone (I thought I would throw in some fancy marine biology terms there) from the low-tide line down to about 2–4 metres deep. (6-12 feet deep).

It is a tough plant and if ripped away from its rock can float for a considerable distance without breaking down before washing up.

Sea urchins eat the kelp and other creatures like abalone and snails might nibble at the drifting kelp.

Here is a mix of tangled seaweeds: the red Gigartina is common on this coast; the green, fern-like sea rimu and the brown kelp Ecklonia radiata, the dominant kelp of southern Australia. (I might print and hang this shot - I particularly like this one).

Kelp and other seaweed forests produce large amounts of oxygen and store carbon by absorbing CO₂ and locking it into their tissues and, when detached, they carry the carbon into deep-sea sediments as they decay.

See the green seaweed frond? That is sea rimu. As the larger kelp drifted through the rock pools on its way to the shore, it picked up this delicate, green feathery seaweed and took it for a ride.

I am sure you did not drop in this morning expecting to get a mini lecture on seaweed!! So I will stop now. 😂

Good morning!

I am enjoying these shorter daily posts now. There is too much in our heads for longer deep dive posts. Too much sorrow. Too much international anxiety. Too much confusion created by the combatants in the news cycle. Nice to have sone respite - I think? You?

But just before we go - seaweed is great in the garden!! Wash it three times and dig it in. This is what my godmother did. Do you remember my godmother - you can visit her here.

Sometimes I tell you the old peoples stories, collected from them before they died or put together using their letters and diary entries and notes in their recipe books and my diaries and recipe books. Like my godmothers story above.

Lately we have come across this image of my great grandfather, Frank. We have just begun digging into his life.

His daughter was Dorothy the pianist, my father’s mother.

Doesn’t he look like a dude! Anyone want to take a shot at dating this image? Use your detective skills on the clothes and the cars, etc. And those sunglasses. Oh my.

Celi

PS Today we drive back to the city so I had better get a wriggle on!