Happy as Clams

Of course I am talking about us, happy as clams clamming, not about the poor little clams. Bryan was raised on this stretch of beach and followed his mother out as soon as he could carry a shovel. This is fun for us.

For some reason the low tides for the best clamming usually occur on some dark and rainy early morning. That doesn't stop us. We used to use the traditional shovel method but last year we gave in and now use a "clam gun." This misnamed tool is a large pvc tube, closed at one end by a handle but with a small hole next to the handle. When you insert the gun near a likely clam "hole" and cover the small hole with your thumb, a vacuum causes the sand and, hopefully a clam, to be sucked from the sand.


Our haul: the limit is 15 razor clams per day on one license. Guess who doesn't dig clams?

Wednesday Weekly Walking

Photo by Jane of Sherwood Merry Walkers

Within a few days of our move to Oregon several years ago, our friends Anila and Nere invited us to join them in a weekly walking group. Anila is in the black jacket, two to the left of my orange jacket and Nere is over her right shoulder. Note that I am the only one wearing gloves, wimp that I am about cold weather.

This group is part of a larger organization, American Volkssport Association, which sponsors walking clubs throughout the US. Our Wednesday group is informal and the number of walkers varies each week, although the distance of the walk is always 10k, or about 6.2 miles. The reward is that we always end near some pleasant, not too expensive, restaurant for lunch.

We are not walkers by AVA standards. The majority of the conversations involve meeting the club challenges of walking in all the state capitals or towns that have bridges or rivers or museums or whatever. Since we aspire to none of the above and we just enjoy the walks, we chat about other things and get to see interesting parts of the Portland area on our way.

We should get these people to walk on the hills and cobblestones of San Miguel. Now that is a challenge!