Clam digging

We have had quite the busy couple of weeks as we enjoy our short summer in Alaska! Sometime ago our friends, the Millers, asked us if we had ever been clam digging, and they were shocked when we replied, "No!" Actually I had been clam digging as a child, but never since then, so our kids nor Steve had ever had the privilege.

Wednesday was clamming day as the tide was very low. We drove to Ninilchik and drove out to the beach along with half the population of the Kenai Peninsula. Well, that might be overdueing it a little bit, but not by much. I have never seen a beach in Alaska so dotted with people!

We were outfitted in boots with rain pants that were duck taped around the bottom or hip waders and plastic gloves duck taped around the wrist...all to keep out the cold water and sand. We looked like quite the sight, along with everyone else on the beach, decked out in our clamming gear!

Buckets and clam shovels in hand we sauntered down to the beach ready to do business. Alaska's gray sandy beaches appear smooth and untouched most of the time until there is a good clamming tide. We searched for small indents in the sand to let us know that a razor clam was waiting just below the surface. The shovels and sand started flying to catch that speedy fast razor clam before he could dig his way deeper. The Millers have done this a time or two, but for the Veldstra family it was a whole new experience. It took a few tries of coming up empty handed to get the hang of it, but then we figured it out and soon had clams in our buckets.

It was a fun and successful day of clam digging. By far the fun part was digging...the difficult and time consuming part was cleaning! We left the house at 9:30 to go clamming and were finished cleaning clams by 4:30 in the afternoon...wow, what a day! We will certainly enjoy every bite of clam chowder this winter!