Lovely little shells

This morning there were tons of tiny shells at the tide line on the beach. Strange photos above I know, but they are my attempt to show how thick they were... a good 2 to 3 inches thick, and the close-up shot hopefully lets you see how many of these tiny coquina shells there are in a bunch. 

A coquina is a tiny clam about a half an inch in length. Their hinged shells are often called butterfly shells and come in a myriad of colors from white, to yellow, to lavender, to a deep terra cotta and everything in between. Some have bands of color like rays of a sunrise or sunset. When I was a kid we used to stick the halves on our fingernails like those plastic ones found in the drugstore. Oh how grown up we felt.

My Dad and I would also go to the beach, find live ones burrowed at the edge of the surf and bring them home for Mom to make coquina broth. 

Around this area of Florida's East coast many of the older buildings were constructed using coquina rock which is abundant. These tiny shells get compacted over time (thousands of years) and create their own lime which literally cements them together into stone. I have some of this coquina rock as a landscape feature in my yard. It is interesting to see these tiny shells imbedded in solid rock, makes me feel humble when I realize just how big and ancient this universe is. Being brought down to size every once in a while is not a bad thing, and these darling little shells do the trick in such a lovely way.