Sunset Beach

Book club today: 7 of us gathered at one of our member's home's at the bottom end of the Hood Canal on the Olympic Peninsula to talk about Alice Munro's stories - the book we all read is The Beggar Maid. A writer who can leave out so much and tell us such an enormous amount about humans . Think we will read some aloud tonight! A girls' overnight!

This is the view from the deck as the sun went down -it's called Sunset Beach and is full of oysters! like so many places along this canal. There are 65 varieties of the imported pacific oyster ( crassostea gigas, which came from Japan in the early 1900s) and they seem to be very healthy here on the beach where the tide rocks them back and forth, making a tough shell. On the spit off to the right ( hard to see as the tide is high) of the beach with the houses, a commercial company brings spat to grow more and harvest regularly. But some of the companies pay the home owners to harvest those that grow naturally on their beaches, like here. I've put a photo of the oysters growing on the breakwater right where I'm standing on Flickr. ( but I'm not sure how to link it with this iPad.try This.) Just think of those native Americans living here with all this abundant food available to pick up and not having to go off and hunt. And it's all good for their brains. And ours. Also lots of clams , and crabs. There is a lot of fresh water emptying into this bay making it attractive for oysters and I suppose the acidification of the ocean which is killing Puget Sound oysters will take longer to take effect here. I wonder .