{"id":3340,"date":"2016-02-27T13:02:45","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T17:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=3340"},"modified":"2016-02-27T13:02:45","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T17:02:45","slug":"biggest-boys-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=3340","title":{"rendered":"The Biggest Boys on the Beach"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you live on a barrier island, the sand underneath you is an ever-shifting thing. Wind, water, and varying amounts of time all like to take those fine particles and move them, sometimes in one direction only to move some of them back again a short time later. In a storm, for example, much of the sand from the dunes can soon find its way hundreds of feet out into the bottom of the ocean. Conversely, there are times when dunes end up with additional sand at the end of a storm.<\/p>\n

When dunes and beaches erode, however, this increases vulnerability to subsequent erosion and damage, particularly during storms. One method for mitigating future damage is often called a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153push,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d something I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about before<\/a>. During a push, bulldozers come during low tide and push some of the sand farther out on the shoreline back toward the dunes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I guess I should be accustomed to pushes by now, having seen them several times. But still, when I found out they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be pushing by my house on our old island while I was there, I was excited. I headed out on the beach to assess their approach. (You know, because who better to make sure heavy equipment operators are properly executing their assignment than an English teacher\/writer\/mother of three?)<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0184\"<\/a>Cool, huh? When they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re here, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the biggest boys on the beach. I stood and watched the rhythmic back-and-forth motions of the bulldozers as they moved from the Atlantic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s edge to the dunes, pushing great piles of sand with their blades. It is a sight to see.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0192\"<\/a>\"IMG_0194\"<\/a>\"IMG_0196\"<\/a>They moved closer and closer to our house, and then stopped,<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0201\"<\/a>just before our house, probably for lunch.<\/p>\n

A short time later they resumed their work, until the incoming tide forced their day to end just past our stretch of beach.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0238\"<\/a>The next day, at low tide, I watched each bulldozer start up again and begin the day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s push.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0240\"<\/a>As they moved farther and farther from our house, the waves muffled the sounds of their engines, the mist closed in around them, and the sand left behind was the only evidence of our recent visit by the biggest boys on the beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you live on a barrier island, the sand underneath you is an ever-shifting thing. Wind, water, and varying amounts of time all like to take those fine particles and move them, sometimes in one direction only to move some of them back again a short time later. In a storm, for example, much of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1410,2044,2043,2042,2041,105,100],"class_list":["post-3340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-a-beach-push","tag-beach-bulldozers","tag-beach-erosion","tag-bulldozers-on-the-beach","tag-dune-protection","tag-island-life","tag-island-living"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}