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Author Archives: Teri J Pieper

There and Back

It was nice to be able to visit friends both coming and going to and from the beach. We saw old friends and their dogs. On the way we stopped in Olympia and had five black dogs altogether! Going to the beach I was lucky to have perfect driving weather with blue skies and no rain or snow. Coming home was a different story. Snoqualmie Pass was closed for avalanche control and opened shortly after I got there. Most cars had to put on chains. Lucky me with my AWD and traction tires, I could skip that tiresome step. Still, the going was slow with bumper to bumper traffic all the way over. A drive that normally takes half an hour took two hours! I was greatly relieved to arrive in Cle Elum and take a break. Blewett Pass was not in bad shape – just compact snow but folks were driving too fast or too slow and it took longer than usual too. What a relief to arrive at Kim’s house. The next day, it was snowing hard in the Wenatchee valley and we enjoyed a walk in the orchard before I left. It weather improved as I got farther north and across the Columbia for the last time. Sadly there was a terrible accident and the highway was closed for three hours and I had to backtrack and take a longer detour through still another snow storm. I can’t tell you how good it felt to get home. The dogs were amazingly patient with all that car time.

A bad picture taken from a moving car but compare it to the photos from the return trip.
Brenna (12), Ty (2), Ella (11 months), Sky (6 months) and Luna (7).
Stopped just outside of North Bend
A walk in the orchard before the last leg of the trip
Luna!
Zur, in the background and Ziggy – Luna’s oldest dog friend.
Ick
The last snow storm on the way home

Peeps on the Beach

There are a few species of small sandpipers that are often lumped together as ‘peeps’. The three species look similar and can be difficult to identify. I used to look at lots of shorebirds and got so I could remember the key things to look for but it’s been so long that I’ve lost much of that info. Groups of shorebirds are fascinating to watch as they run back and forth feeding and leap into the air and do it all as one big mass. I found this large group that had hundreds of birds at the Ocean City beach access a little south of where we were staying. We saw smaller flocks on our beach. The dogs stayed in the car while I watched and photographed the birds on the incoming tide. I stayed in one place and the birds came ever closer with the waves. There were other people walking and fishing and driving on the beach and nothing seemed to bother them. I think these birds are Western Sandpipers but I may be wrong.

Dogs on the Beach

How much fun can dogs have on the beach?

One of many treasures that Sky found
She tried to get the lid off of this peanut butter jar
Playing with Frida
It’s possible she had too much fun. She was incredibly tired but really never wanted to quit.
Sky was so tired she fell asleep on top of Luna
Running out to see Ken
Can’t we just keep doing this?

Digging Razor Clams

Digging razor clams is not like digging steamer clams. Some folks use a long narrow shovel and they may consider themselves purists but we have found that clam ‘guns’ work just fine for us. These guns are tubes, often made of plastic pipe but also made of aluminum or steel, with handles on the top. A clammer finds a clam ‘show’ – a dimple in the wet sand – and then carefully lines the gun up with that dimple and going at an angle with the handle a bit back towards shore, the clammer shoves the tube as far into the sand as she can. Then she puts her thumb or finger over a small hole on the handle and pulls the tube, now full of heavy, wet sand, out and with any luck, the clam will be in that sand. She may have to do this twice or just reach down into the wet sand and grab the clam before it digs away from her. These clam digs are timed with low tides and often are at night. We were lucky that our tides were in the early evening and the days are lengthening so we did not need lanterns and head lamps! There is a limit of fifteen clams per person per day. We got our limits each day. After digging, you have to clean the clams and that’s really the hard part. People get to drive on the beach to their favorite spot. We were lucky to be staying right on the beach so just walked out the door to our favorite spot!

The view from our room
Perfect clamming weather
Wish us luck
MA reaches for her clam
There it is!
Show me your clam!
Frist you push it all the way in
Then you pull, trying to avoid straining your back
And then you get the clam
A nice one
A limit of fifteen clams. Look out – that one is trying to get away.
Happy clammers
More happy clammers
Our two limits on the first day
Clammers at sunset
Ken and his brother in the clam shack, cleaning clams
A clam ready to be cleaned

Good Times at the Beach

Last week the dogs and I drove across the state and met Ken for a few days of razor clam digging. He’d been working on the Olympic Peninsula and the timing was good for a clam season. These seasons happen about once a month between November and April on the Washington coast. In addition to clam digging there was lots of other fun on the beach. Ken fished for surf perch. His brother joined us for one night. Our friend Mary Ann and her dog Frida and her friend Linda spent two nights there. The dogs loved running and chasing balls on the beach. Sky became seriously addicted to the ‘chuck it’ toy. We had some seriously good weather for February and some normal overcast and rainy weather too.

With three feet of snow on the ground at home, these crocuses were a welcome sight.
The view from our room
One of many creeks that pour into the ocean
We had some really good weather
Clammers at sunset
Bull kelp
Bull kelp
Northwest Crow
Surf perch
Sky is more interested in her ball than the fish
A stringer of surf perch
Luna wonders why Ken won’t throw the ball for her
A flock of peeps
Fishing for surf perch in the rain