bulk shopping question

[srkruzich]

Steve,
I've ate a lot of smoked carp but the regular ol carp is so bony but you get a 25-30 lb grass carp and it's new ballgame. Bones are big enough to pick out easy plus they don't have near as much of that red meat
Feeding carp to felines ? What a waste of good food---and there are starving Pygmies here in Longton !!!

I don't know the difference really.  The only carp i have ever caught was those big fat giant goldfish type.   Had a lot of bones but a lot of flesh on them too.

[Diane Amberg]

I haven't had a bucket in the shower since our last drought, because it's upstairs, but I already always do use cooking water and left over ice cubes to water my big pots on the deck and my houseplants too. Do you have eels in your creeks?

[sixdogsmom]

Diane, we used to have eels in the rivers here until pollution took them out. Eels and mussels are a good indicator of the health of the local waters, but I am certain that you know that. They used to catch mussels on a commercial basis here in the Elk river, but that too has gone by the wayside. Too bad! 

[Judy Harder]

One of my jobs, maybe the last physical one I did, was work for Louis Britian when he bought and sold mussel shells and harvested  mussels.
Jarhead was one of our good suppliers.
The work was yucky (for city slickers) and heavy, that might have been one of the reason my body is in the shape I am in. Louis, Randy, Terry, Sandy and several others got (I think hunting? is that right Ronnie, or fishing license?) for harvesting and then all the masses brought to Louis the shells that were legal size and the keepers and we cooked them out and then went through the meats to look for freshwater pearls.........it was an job I really, really liked.

Oh, to get these mussels, we had to go to the water source. I am not sure where all they went, the Verdigris, Elk, Fall River, Little Caney over by Burden (is that the name Ron?) and even up at Perry Lake in Northern Kansas.

Even though you couldn't tell it, Louis made the money. but he had to pay each person who brought them in for their catches.
I was a buyer and once in awhile the guys would take me to the river with them. I don't swim, but I was in "Hog-Heaven"
It was grooty, we worked the meats. Oh Steve Fielder and his wife worked with us and steve and I went through the meats? after we worked the shells. by then they had sat in the sun all day and of course were rotten and maggoty and just plain grose.
I loved it. We had to feel each one for a rough spot, almost always it was a pearl.......depended on types of meat.........each one could have a little one.Always we would get started then our nose itched......dare you to scratch with rotten mussel meat on the hand. LOL

Now, Louis' factory???!!! was his back yard at Oak Valley. You would have to see to believe it.
Rough, outhouse, cooked the shells in a huge vat that held so many I can't guess the poundage....but each bucket we removed cooked weight 60+ and after we sorted the kinds of shells..........very many different and I can only remember maple leaf, monkey face, one shaped like a dish pan was usually scraped cause the factory couldn't use them for jewelry and used them I think for crushed shell on sidewalks, etc.think that was a WashBoard.
I think 10 or 15 that I can remember types of mussels. I had a blast and don't regret doing it at all.
just a tip of the ice berg. We kept young people working and the guys worked as hard as you would believe. We had people bring to us from all over southeast kansas.
Last I knew some of them got greedy and took out the small ones and instead of tossing back in, opened looking for pearls an dthen a disease got into the rivers and that was that.

[Dee Gee]

Interesting story, Judy, I did not realize that mussel shell were sold in southeast Kansas.  Did they process them and make buttons with them?

[Diane Amberg]

Thanks Judy. I knew you had done that from a long ago post, but didn't remember why it all stopped.
As far as being messy, have you ever been up to your elbows in crab gunk?  There is just nothing like a big pile of Old Bay seasoned blue claw crabs on a news paper covered table and picking crabs all afternoon with your friends. Of course there must be ice cold beer, iced tea and corn on the cob too. I like to have some chocolate ice cream for dessert also.

[Judy Harder]

Yes, Dee Gee, Louis waited till he had a semi load and then he had a buyer, (He would not have done it for nothing!) the American Shell, I think, I am having trouble with names today. remember this was from about 87- 91 maybe.....it did continue later but Jim Bunyard did it after Louis had to give it up.
But, the shell company turned it into jewelry and buttons. the mother of pearl and abalone you see make beautiful artful jewelry. and even the cheap stuff louie sold at his shop in town......went well.
Louis did diverse by opening a craft store in Longton and had everything from my woodburning to Randy's t-shirt machine and louie wheeled and dealed with the best. He bought jewelry from the shell company and then we turned around and sold it at craft fairs and street fairs. Those were the years of craft fairs all over the place........we did go to Manhattan and Perry and even did a knife and gun show at Tulsa. Fun and oh so much work. but I love to watch people and believe me we saw "STRANGE" people...........LOL. Oh forgot the "Strangest" were up in Lawrence where all the college people were. really got an education.
Diana, working with the mussels.stopped me from eating oysters for a long time.
Now, I am a land lubber and our oysters (mine anyway) come out of the can. I love soup I love eating them right out of a can for a mini meal. NO I do NOT share! but cooking the shells so they open and then working with the rotten meats, I am sure they compare to working in a slaughter house.........I would do it again in a pinch. altho I would like better creature comforts....not young enough any more, but memories are still going strong.

Shame on your diane bragging aboout your meal with beer and corn on cob.....make my ice cream brown bread and you have a new guest.

[Diane Amberg]

Sorry Judy, you'd be welcome anytime.

[greatguns]

Jarhead loves that carp because he is just a big ole pussycat!

[srkruzich]

I've bought sheets of abalone and mother of pearl but never used it from mussels. Don't use it much though you have to wear respirator to work with it.  Dangerous stuff.