We just had a memorable hurricane, a super storm with massive tides and lots of flooding. Our local beach (Maidstone Park Beach) was gone. Our road (Maidstone Park Road) looked like a river in certain sections.
- Maidstone Park Rd flooded
In the aftermath we have been walking the beach trying to find unusual things that might have washed ashore as a sequel to the storm. Here are a few.
Lots of Prickly pear cactus! This species is abundant around Three Mile Harbor and specially on the peninsula of Sammy’s beach. This area was flooded by the storm and the cactus’ oval sections could have been ripped apart. However, the appearance of the cactus sections one week AFTER the storm, suggests that they may have come from afar and I am told that there is a lot of prickly pear by Orient point on the North Fork a few miles away from our beach. So perhaps that is where they came from.
Another abundant find are these red roots:
- Red roots
These could be Schoenoplectus (Scirpus robustus), also known as Salt Marsh Bulrush. The rusty redish root is called a rhizome and it runs horizontally giving rise to genetically identical plants at each node. I assume the storm caused some damage to these plants. Interestingly, Bulrush roots are edible!
Upon the suggestion of my friend John Todaro, see his blog, we went to Beach Hampton (Napeague Lane) and found lots of drift wood:
This large tree has embedded rocks in the roots!
Spoke of ships wheel (14 inches)? Or perhaps the wooden handle of a fishing rod?
Close up of metal work of the above piece
Twisted stick with snake head
And here is what we did with one piece of beach glass…note the nice pattern on the glass. I wonder where it came from originally?
White beach glass with pattern – used as pendent with sterling silver necklace.
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Nice! ”
when life gives you lemons make a glass of lemonade.”