The Hermits in Our House -

After Sophia and Therese's ballet class a couple weeks ago, we walked down the shopping center toward the hair salon so that I could make an appointment. But between the studio and the salon is a pet store. Some of you know that - in a word - I'm doomed.

Right in the window was a big cage of hermit crabs. And since Fia and Therese are studying crabs, I thought this would be fitting and cute and, well, not too expensive.

The not-so-up-on-the-crab-info guy gave me some general instructions, and told me vaguely about these little crabbies. They were inexpensive and they eat lettuce and "stuff like that" [yes, this is from the pet store owner!] We had a 10 gal tank on the back deck - used to house the periodic lizard, caterpillar, etc. That would be perfect to keep these things in. So the girls got to each choose a crab. I knew from the pet store guy that they'd need extra shells - I just wasn't clear on HOW soon :O)

Therese named hers Sandy while Sophia named hers Pinchy. Cute. Pinchy bit it Friday morning. Not cute.

Apparently he had come out of his shell and needed to have that home immediately [they have extremely soft abdomens and need to be protected from prey - namely the kids around here]! It would've been nice if the pet shop guy was a little more knowledgable concerning shells. "Yeah, and you might want to buy some extra shells NOW to have them in their cage. You never know when they'll outgrow their shells." Something like that would've been helpful.

So Friday morning I *knew* I'd be heading up to PetsMart. "Are you gonna get Sophia another crab?" - "Yeah. I think so." Sophia was naming her *new* one before Pinchy was totally out of life and before I even left!

When I found the Hermit crab items at PetsMart I bought somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 shells [they were not cheap!], saltwater, salt [to make our own saltwater!], a hideaway kit w/a food dish, a sponge - oh!, and let's not forget the crab!

What started out as a fairly inexpensive pet project turned out to be close to one hundred smackaroos! I was not about to NOT have another shell for these fellas. And the shells are different sizes to accomodate the crabs as they grow.

Now we have Sandy and Crabby! Crabby really is crabby. He does not come out of his shell much. He is a scar-dee-cat! Sandy was really sociable but is learning bad habits from Crabby!

He did, however, move into a different shell a couple days after I bought them! Pretty cool.

I can't be sure, but I believe this one is the late Pinchy