What a beautiful day, the sun is shining, grass is greener, and yesterday I went for an ice cream in Bouctouche NB. I enjoy stopping for ice cream once in a while , while out sunday driving. In the summer I enjoy stopping at a rest area, where there are picnic tables (especially near the water) having a lunch. I remember when I was around ten years old, my father had an old pick up truck and every weekend he would take people to the beach , (for a fee), my brothers, sisters, and I would sit in the back of the truck, I remember my mother saying ,"you kids sit near the front , and stay there". I remember passing certain buildings during our ride to the beach, and when we hit a place called Gilbert's Corner, we got a glimpse of the ocean, then we got excited. We went to a beach called Caissie Cape, and it was so nice. I remember walking along the shore picking up shells. Then my mother would spread a couple of blankets on the sand, and unpack her lunch and when we came out of the water, she would call us over. Our lunch was usually devilled ham sandwiches and root beer or orange pop. They were the best sandwiches to us at that time, even if there sometimes was sand on them. heh heh.
I used to love the water, I would try and swim under water , but couldn't hold my breath very long. My father also took up clam digging and quahawg picking, now clam digging was easy, we walked along the shore on the sand looking for holes , when we saw the holes we took the shovel and dug, sometimes the holes were not clams "they were worms , yuck I didn't like those" we would fill our pails with the clams and steam them, take some of the juice add a pat of butter and soak our clams in them, mmm very tasty, and for the quahawgs (which is also a shelled fish) we would walk in a certain area in the water about waist high, feel on the bottom of the ocean with our feet until we felt a hard shell, then we would pick them , they looked like a big bar clam . I only started eating those once I was married, my husband used to eat them all the time , one day I got brave and tried one, they are very good tasting and salty.
About two years ago I tried my luck at Dulse Picking, now that is something I don't think I want to do again at my age, what we had to do is wait for the lowest tides to happen, once the tide was low we had to walk out into the ocean on some rocks, I would say a couple of miles or so, but to me it seemed so far away, we wore boots on our feet because we had to walk on huge rocks, until we found the dulse, which is like a seaweed , but grows on rocks, it is purple in color and slimy when we pick it, then we dry it in the sun. Anyway getting back to the picking , you have about an hour or so to get out in the ocean, pick the dulse and hurry back to land before the tide comes back in, well I don't have to tell you that I was the FIRST one back on land , as soon as I saw a ripple of a hint that the tide was coming in , I started back to shore. whew I made it. But I did try something I had never done before. Aww it is so nice to sit back, think about the good times , the happy times.
So in ending today I would like to say, start some kind of diary if you are young, and if you are older write your memories in some books. Save them.
Have a great day.