Newest McCarty

Growing up I had a friend who annually came home with a hermit crab from the beach...and I was jealous every single year of her newest pet. My mom had a pretty strict rule about pets not ever being in the rodent (no hamsters) and reptiles (no snakes) families...somewhere in there hermit crabs made it to her "Not a Pet" list and I was never a proud owner of a hermit crab.

Not to repeat the disappointment from my own childhood, I decided Ruth Ann would be leaving this beach trip with a hermit crab...meet Shelly...



Since his purchase he has relocated to a new, larger shell...we left the sun glass shell with Ms. Page as a reminder of our visit.

Here's Ruth Ann on her very first visit to Eagles...



And the proud new owner of a her first hermit crab in what she calls a "lunch box"...



I had assumed the hermit crab was a low maintenance pet...I was wrong. After doing a little google searching on care of our new pet I discovered he may live for 10-20 years! He may also need a bigger place to live, things to climb, places to burrow himself and perhaps a friend or 2...way more involved than I initially thought! I'm just hoping he makes it to the end of the summer and after talking with my friends/co-workers I hope to NEVER see him outside of his shell...apparently it's very disturbing!