Final Forage of ’08

I took advantage of a gap in the weather yesterday to shanghai Riley and his best friend Alec to our go-to shellfish beach. The snow had mostly melted and high winds and rain were yet to arrive. Even crossing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge the two second-graders ignored the world outside, too wrapped up in trading their Pokemon cards to admire the dramatic view of Puget Sound’s glacial pinch. They haggled in the back seat like a couple of old geezers.

But once on the clam beds the twenty-first century’s kiddie distractions began to slip away: Pokemon characters and Nintendo gave way to the visceral pleasures of working a shovel into the sand and uncovering a nice littleneck clam. The boys found sand dollars, caught a sculpin, and engineered a network of canals and locks as the tide receded. They dug clams and found mussels. They got a laugh out of a thieving gull that pilfered my container of shucked oysters the moment I turned my back.

When we got home, Alec proudly presented his mom with a limit of clams. I’ve got plans for our own haul: full limits of clams, mussels, and oysters will be part of tonight’s feast, which will incorporate a few other wild delicacies from 2008. More on that next year.

Happy New Year everyone!

3 thoughts on “Final Forage of ’08

  1. Tim

    Nice looking haul Finny. I’m not much on the mussels or oysters, not for a lack of trying to like them, but clams mmmmmm. Happy New Year to you and your family.

    Reply
  2. sally@mixedgreensblog.com

    New Years Eve at your place sounds delectable. I’m making a fish chowder on Sunday – I’ll check your archives. I bet you have a good chowder lurking in there somewhere.
    Happy New Year.
    Sally

    Reply

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