Their house was not far from the beach, only a ten-minute walk away. However, after arriving at the beach, everyone did not go down directly to the beach, but continued to walk along the shore towards the outside of the pier.
There are also sand clams that can be dug under the beach, but you need to look for them because their beach is not small, and not every spot has sand clams, nor can you just dig them out with a few shovels.
Sand clams are a type of clams, and can also be called flower clams, but people in their village are accustomed to calling them sand clams because they are dug out from the beach.
Even though they are dug out from the beach, most of them do not contain sand. In the rare cases where there is sand, you only need to keep it overnight before you can eat it.
Add a few clams when cooking soup or noodles and the taste will be so delicious.
The villagers no longer like to eat the clams in the market. They are not as fresh as the ones they dig from the beach, and the meat is not as chewy as their sand clams.
Moreover, the sand clams on their beach are somewhat different from the clams on the market. The sand clams vary in size. The small ones are the size of a fingernail, while the large ones are the same size as clams. However, the small ones are also very fleshy.
There are two high tides and two low tides every day. During the normal low tide, there will be children going there to dig and play, but there will be more people during the low tide on the first and fifteenth day of the lunar month.
Moreover, people in their village are accustomed to digging outside the pier, because only on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar month will the tide recede very much and the beach on the other side of the pier will be exposed. Normally, the beach is full regardless of whether it is high tide or low tide.
Whenever it is exposed, there are many clams to dig under the beach, and the reefs on the shore will also be exposed. There are clams and oysters to pry open and snails to pick up on the reefs.
Live by the mountain, live by the sea!
If you live by the sea and work hard, you won’t go hungry.
After arriving at the pier, they walked slowly down the steep stone slope. At this time, the tide had receded, revealing a small piece of sandy beach. There were already several women squatting on the beach digging in the sand.
Usually, fishing in the sea is done by the women and children in the family. Ye Yaodong has not been to the beach since he got married. He is not a child anymore, so he is no longer interested in this beach.
But after being reborn, maybe it was because of a sense of time, his state of mind was different, and he felt a little more fresh about this beach.
He was the first to walk over and look at the bucket next to the village woman. "Is there anything to dig? Oh, there really is. How long have you been digging?"
Everyone was digging on the beach with spatulas, and no one paid any attention to him.
A man is idle all day long. Do they think they are the same as him? Instead of gossiping, wouldn't it be better to do more
No one paid any attention to him, but Ye Yaodong didn't get angry. He watched his son squatting on the beach playing with sand, then he walked back to his wife. In just a short while, there were already six or seven more sand clams in her basin.
Hearing two more ding-dong sounds, he squatted down and said, "You dig pretty fast."
A spatula is the most practical tool for digging sand clams, no doubt about it!
Some people couldn't press the wooden handle down, so they used a spatula to scrape it.
Lin Xiuqing also held a spatula. She said without raising her head, "Practice makes perfect. Besides, this doesn't require any skills. Just scrape the sand."
Well, he did this a lot when he was a kid. For kids who grew up by the sea, the thing they played the most was digging sand.
Now that he was here, he couldn't just stand there and watch. Without a spatula to scrape, he just used his hands.
There were small bubble holes on the beach. Ye Yaodong could easily pick them out and find a sand clam, and he always got it right.
Listening to the continuous ding-dong sounds in the washbasin, Lin Xiuqing glanced sideways. So fast
Ye Yaodong noticed her gaze and raised his eyebrows, "What? Do you think I'm awesome? Do you want me to teach you?"
As he spoke, he tapped the surface of the beach with both hands, and another one!
He dug into the basin and said, "This stuff is easy to dig. I dug a lot when I was a kid."
"How do you manage to hit the target every time?" She was really curious.
Although her parents' home is in the next town, her area is not near the sea but is backed by mountains.
After being married and living by the sea for several years, she has always followed her mother-in-law and sisters-in-law, doing whatever they do. She follows them every time they go to the beach to scoop up seafood. Everyone else also uses a spatula to scoop up small pieces at a time, but no one does it like he does.
Ye Yaodong pointed at the small holes under the beach and said, "See these? Sand clams also need to breathe. They breathe through these holes. There must be something underneath where there are holes."
As he spoke, he demonstrated and took out two more.
He is very good at tapping holes.
It was because it was close to the first day of the new year and the tide had just receded on the beach near the pier that it was so easy to dredge. However, it was not so easy to dredge on the beach in the middle of the beach.
Lin Xiuqing also curiously took a look and found it was true!
"Then why bother with a spatula? Just scoop it out directly!" Using a spatula requires a lot of effort to scrape, and your hands will become sore after a long time.
"You still need to use a spatula. It's more convenient to have a tool. I didn't have a spatula, so I used my hands. Some are on the surface and can breathe without small holes. If the beach is stepped on by people in a while, you won't be able to see the holes. It's just now that the tide has receded, so you can see the bubble holes."
Lin Xiuqing kept looking at him while he spoke. Over the years, except for the period when they first got married, they rarely had normal communication. He was always elusive, and when he came back it was only at mealtime and bedtime, and at most he would ask her a few questions.
Most of the time they looked nonchalant, and it was really hard for her to adapt to seeing someone speaking so seriously and teaching her at the same time.
"What are you looking at? Dig!"
"oh!"
But after a short while, more people came to dig clams. People these days are very hardworking, except Ye Yaodong.
After squatting for a while, he felt his legs a little numb, so he stood up, twisted his waist and neck, and looked at the sea in the distance.
Just dig for a while and show a little bit of performance, but don't be too diligent.
The tide is still receding at this moment, and there are many small boats parked near the pier. Because of the tide, many boats are stranded on the beach and can only return to the sea after the next high tide.
The time now is 9:30. Today's tide should recede to the bottom at 10:30, and then start to rise again, reaching full strength around 4:30 in the evening, and recede to the bottom again at about 11:30 at night, and reach full strength around 7 in the morning.
Every day the tide rises and falls one hour later than the previous day. Although Ye Yaodong has just been reborn today, he can tell what time the tide will rise and fall tomorrow just by looking at the tide.
No wonder his elder and second brothers wanted to come out to check the tide before sailing. As it was approaching the first day of the new year, the tide would recede even further in the middle of the night. They would have to go out to sea around 1-2 a.m., and the tide would definitely not have risen much at that time.
The tide is not high enough and the boat cannot get out.