More Creek Adventures...

This may become a regular feature here on the Chez Jalowiec Blog.

The creek strikes again, and this time they have gotten serious. The adventures never end.

Crayfish. Crawdads. Crawfish. Ugly. Smelly. Way Too Small To Even Bother With.

The creek bed, it would seem, is quite the breeding ground for these things. And of coarse where there is mud, living creatures, and some semblance of adventure... there you will find a boy. One of mine to be sure.

Here you see the poor unsuspecting critters. They had a fun filled day sitting in the bucket on the patio. Their demise was pretty well fixed in the mind of my son. He just had to convince me.

And he finally did. "Really, Mom. You just boil them for a few minutes, crack open the shell, and dip them in butter. They're GrEaT!!" Mind you, I don't like fish sticks, clams, shrimp, lobster, scallops, tuna, salmon, talapia ... I could list them all and bore you endlessly... but suffice it to say that if it came from water, I don't want to eat it. Now that these came from my neighborhood creek that happens to be adjacent to the farmers field that smells like a cow pasture every spring from the organic fertilizer does absolutely NoThInG to encourage me to try it as "I might like it" this time! And let me tell you these little suckers are UGLY.

And smelly! Really, Savannah is creatively plugging her nose, and not "picking" it as the picture may suggest. Micah was giving me a close up of it. Lovely don't you think???

\

Here they are enjoying their hot tub. There was a yellow scum that had collected on the edge of the pot. You are welcome for cropping it out. We brainstormed as to what it may actually be. None of the ideas we came up with were the least it appealing. He was undeterred. He was going to eat them.

I will grant you the transformation from blackish and ugly to reddish and ugly is quite impressive. This is no shock to you lobster lovers out there. I was told by the observers- all sea food lovers- that they actually smelled good as they cooked there on my patio. I was undeterred. I was not going to eat them.

By his expert determination (...??!!...) they were done. Several of them looked barely large enough to be identifiable as an actual crawdad. They surely were in their infantile state! Sorry, you can see the yellow "whatever-it-is" there on the edge.

I don't know what skeeved me most. The really-long-relative-to-their-body tentacles or their bulging post-boiled eyes. It is all pretty gross. Did I mention I am not a fan of sea food? Of any Kind??

Still, the melted butter awaited. The extraction process began.

Sorry for the poor quality- my regular camera batteries died... from all the nastiness I think. My Cell phone came to the rescue. All that you see on the plate is parts. Parts and parts and parts.

They did eat them. I think there was about 7 grams of meat on them all. Collectively. I am told they weren't that bad. But that means they were a little bad! Gina had more fun playing with them. Can you tell these kids are home schooled? They look at everything as a learning opportunity. She began inspecting it like we were in Biology dissection class. Google was discussed... and diagraming, and brain matter... if it exists in their creepy little heads. The craw dads, not the children.

But the thought of making this an educational experience was dismissed. Whew! Certainly there was enough scintillating excitement for one afternoon. I still get the shiver creeps just thinking about it.