For it is in giving that we receive. - Francis of Assisi

The best view to end the day with - Blind Pass Beach - Englewood, Florida

Who doesn't like getting presents?  The best gifts are those unexpected ones. It's not your birthday, it's not Christmas, hubby didn't screw up and is trying to get back into good graces. I love the gifts that have some thought behind them. 

Here in Englewood the beach is just a hop, skip, & a jump away.  It's very tempting to blow off housework, grocery shopping, or even call in sick well to work and head to the beach.  Most of my circle of friends know that as the afternoon wanes & 5 o'clock rolls around, the family is fed, & the sun is getting ready to set;  there is a spot on Blind Pass Beach in Englewood that has become our gathering place. You don't have to text the where, just that you are there. So there we congregate in our circle of beach chairs talking about whatever and watching all our kids romp in the surf, pick up shells, & shark's teeth.

A storm blew through Saturday night

A recent storm & a low tide (I'm smiling) Prime time for us beachcombers

The high winds a few days back brought quite a bit of flotsam up on the shore.  It was also a very low tide so there was lots of shells and critters in the exposed sandbar. One of my friends was there with her two sons. Brother Gee is 12 yo & Brother Dubya just turned 10.  Both  love animals of any sort.  Between the two of them they have a bona fide zoo - mice, gerbils, a water dragon, 2 chameleons, a variety of snakes, a cockatiel, rabbits, chickens, ducks, a pig, a fresh water fish tank, & a salt water fish tank. Oh and of course - a dog.  This doesn't count all the animals they have hatched from eggs they have found or squirrel babies fallen from nests & have been bottle-fed that have gone on to live in the woods on their property.

Brother Dubya , a hose pipe, & the dawg. Better than video games I'd say.
(credit: Momma AreGee)

Brother Gee's salt water tank. He can tell you the science behind every animal & ecosystem. What a great way to learn about his world.  His biggest wish is to go snorkeling in the Keys.

The banded tulip shell is home to a crab, a sponge, & an anemone

Back to the gift.  I get a phone call from Brother Gee who wants to thank me for a crab I found him in the low tide the previous night.  It turns out there was an anemone hitch-hiking on the shell which earned me several bonus points with him.  He in turn had a gift for me. So I popped over to visit and was presented with a 3 inch megalodon.  (That's a big honkin  shark's tooth for you fossil novices)  Brother Gee is a really special kid.  He is a cross between Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter & St. Francis of Assisi.  He has the skills of the crocodile hunter & the heart of St. Francis who had a very spiritual relationship with animals & all created things. 

Brother Gee is an experienced fossil hunter.  After the Saturday rainstorm he made a beeline straight for the dirt pile to see what the rain had uncovered.

Carcharodon megalodon, Agassiz, 1843 

His grandpa found these huge teeth 

Brother Gee's private collection aka big jar of shark's teeth

A whale vertebrate

Fossilized wood

Brother Gee not only reads about arrowheads - he finds them as well

 Brother Gee was playing on a big dirt pile in his back yard and just saw something sticking out that piqued his curiosity so he dug it out.  Voila - my shark's tooth. Yeah, part of it is broken off but it's perfect to me.  A gift from a young boy who sees the beauty in creation that most of us adults miss. I'd look at the dirt pile and see work.  Brother Gee sees the wonder in a pile of dirt - cool rocks, fossils, arrowheads, and big shark's teeth.

You're never too old to have a treasure box & this is going in mine.