From August 2, 2011
Last week I spent a day volunteering with the North Carolina Coastal Federation moving mesh bags of seashells from Jones Island  to its shoreline, creating a sill for oyster larvae to attach themselves to and grow.  The sill is making lots of crabs and fish and other critters happy, too.  The woman to the right of the photo above is Lexia, our cruise director for the day.  We moved all bags here.  (There were 265, but we're not bragging; the Marines were out from Camp LeJeune and moved, oh, 10 times as many in the same amount of time.)

Here is Lexia and a colleague from the Coastal Federation stacking the bags, which were three across and four high. Because the tide was way, way in, they had to feel their way along.
The Federation is also planting sea grasses around the island to restore habitat and some biodiversity around the place.

From August 2, 2011
Nothing went to waste.  The oyster shells (which are very expensive and came from all over the place.) that fell out of the bags were dragged onto the barge and carried out to the water to work their magic.  This took the muscle power of the entire group minus one loafing photographer.
From August 2, 2011
A section of the sill looked quite at home out there.  

Our group consisted of a family from Illinois, the father of which seemed to be all about the Air Force, a retired Marine, a high school guidance counselor, a middle school reading teacher, college interns with the Federation, a local bee keeper and her two girls, and some other folks from near and far in North Carolina who just plain care.  When I got back to base here on Topsail, I decided not to read the paper.  It felt right to dwell in the goodness for a while.

My World Tuesday