Oyster Blog

John and Juan at the shucking table. Roberto and Nathan. Roberto's hand is blurry because it's moving wicked fast. We only shuck oyster clusters, and save the single oysters to sell in the shell. The shuckers have to shuck both big and little oysters. We sell four sizes of oysters: yearling, extra small, small and medium. Pictured above are oysters from both ends of the spectrum, the yearling and the medium.

Long Live the Kings, a non-profit group working to restore native salmon populations, has just completed a 12-year steelhead restoration program on the Hamma Hamma River. The project has gotten great coverage from the Kitsap Sun, check it out here. The really exciting thing about LLTK is that they've developed and implemented a hatchery system that preserves the genetic diversity of the wild fish populations. They take a small number of eggs out of the redds (or nests) produced by native, wild fish, then hatch the eggs in a hatchery and raise the fish for 4 to 5 years before...

Pacific oysters can grow really, really big if left to their own devices. We keep this monster oyster shell in our store to show to interested customers. It also goes on tour with us occasionally...down to Portland to decorate our booth at the NW Food and Wine Festival...over to Seattle for one of the numerous oyster events we participate in. Barnacles close-up Oyster tree-rings In a later post we'll talk about oyster predators... one of which makes oysters develop the pock-marked pattern shown above. Piggy-back oyster. T.J. and Jean Hsu, visiting from Texas, stopped by to take a tour of...

Hermit Crab in Moon Snail Shell Fragment   This lovely creature is a Hairy Hermit (Pagurus hirsutiusculus)--a species easily identified by the white bands around its walking legs (which you can clearly see in the middle photo). It came in on the oyster barge and was put back out on the beach after the photo shoot. Hairy Hermits are the most common hermit crabs in Puget Sound. Like all hermit crabs, they make their home in abandoned snail shells. A hermit crab's asymmetrical, unprotected abdomen fits easily into spiral snail shells. Hermit crabs won't kill a snail in order to...

Here are some facts you probably didn't know about sea cucumbers: They breathe through their anus. They have a compound in their skin called catch collagen that allows them to liquefy or melt on command. They use this skill to escape into small, safe crevices to evade predators. They have an escalating response to stress. If you poke them with a stick, or hold them in your hand, they'll probably goopify. If you continue to mess with them they may puke their guts out, or eviscerate themselves. If you really, really bother a sea cucumber, it will inhale a bunch of...