Clam-ventures, Continued

If you've been keeping up with my adventures, you'll remember that, despite my best efforts, I haven't been quite as successful with clamming as I'd like to be. So when I found out I'd be heading over to the Curley Community Center to do some fishing and clamming with kids, I was very excited!

So gross but so cool!

When we arrived, the tide was pretty far out - perfect! Olga stayed up at the top of the beach leading an art project, and Eric and I headed down to the shoreline with the rest of the kids to see what kinds of critters we could find in the water. The kids and I grabbed some rakes and a few buckets and set to work scanning the waterline to see if we could find any of the small holes that indicate where the clams are hiding. After much hunting and digging, the kids realized they could find hermit crabs in the water, and set to collecting them in their bucket. I challenged them to see how many they could all collect together, and they immediately jumped on the task.

Resigned but not completely defeated, I kept my eyes down at the wet sand, waiting to stumble upon the perfect clam. The tide was coming in fast, so I knew my time was ticking. I found about fifteen hermit crabs, but not the prize I was really after. After about ten minutes, I bent down to pick up yet another hermit crab, and that's when I saw something very strange.

It was a short, squishy-looking, white tube. Intrigued, I knew I had to poke it. I reached down to pick up this curious little tube, and that's when I realized that it was attached to a clam! No, wait, this WAS the clam! The little clam itself had wormed it's way out of its shell - something I had only ever seen in pictures. What a treat! I called a group of kids over, and while a few thought it was exciting, most thought it was pretty gross and wanted me to throw it back.

I ignored the pleas of the grossed out children and cheerfully dropped the clam into my small bucket. I finally caught a clam, fair and square (no standoffs with seagulls this time), something I'd wanted to do all summer.

Until my next clam-venture,

Melissa