Thanks Carrie, but I don't really have much talent nor do I have patience. I just sort of slap things together. If I can do it anybody can. To show that is why I post pictures of some of the garden stuff I do. If you look closely you'll see that the big shells were lined up first and then small shells glued in between. Bob does the hard work like the drilling holes in the brick -- although I could do that if I had to. Don't tell him though ;-) I have to laugh when I remember how my Mom said I was just like my Grandmother; "always outside beatin' and bangin' around on something" :-)

Thanks a lot for the reply! I searched for that and it's similar, and it makes me regret not having cleaned the sand off of this thing for a better view. But I also checked Fishbase.org for that species ⬠http://www.fishbase.org/summary/67 ⬠and both its native range as well as suitable habitat (on the map at the top right corner) don't include the Azores. But thanks to you I now have a possible name for this thing, "pipefish", so I googled for "Azores pipefish" and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotted_pipefish I guess that the case is closed? It's a spotted pipefish - Nerophis maculatus, or that's what I think at the moment. Any thoughts on this? This post was edited by Rodrigo_ on Thu, Aug 14, 14 at 9:01

Rugby - thanks I believe u got it right! Ken - good to see ur back... Thought u got run out of town over ur pokeweed problems! Haha

I find it so amusing how retailersare copying us!!!