Erik, our neighbour has a friend Brian,
whose wife Claire's third cousin....just
kidding about the cousin.
Claire, a biologist, works at L'Étang Ruisseau Bar Ltd
a family owned business that produces oysters in
Shippagan, on the northeast coast of New Brunswick.
Brian and Claire gave Erik a box of 100 oysters,
an early Christmas gift. These oysters go for about
$2.50 a pop in restaurants.
Move over lobsters here come the oysters.
Oyster Farming at a glance:
- Seed is obtained from Chinese Hat Collectors
What??? 
No, 
this is a Chinese Hat Collector
this is a Chinese Hat Collector
which obtains the oyster spat or seed,
during July/August which is then
retrieved in September.
Each of these stacks yields 7,600 oysters!
From the stacks the wee babes are
put into a nursery called
The Floating Upweller System .
With a constant flow of water
surrounding these juveniles they
grow to be 1 inch.
are transferred to floating bags.
In three to four years a cocktail size oyster emerges and in 4-5 years a choice oyster.
From the bags the market size oysters
are moved to off bottom tables. Here they
rest until they are shipped far and wide
or come to their finally resting place here
in Blue Rocks.
Wrap a towel around the hand holding
the oyster to avoid stabbing yourself!
It seems that our lobster boy, Jeff,
didn't envy jabbing a knife into
his hand while shucking the shells so this task
was delegated to Erik and me.
One down, 99 more to go! 
After a few shucks we got the hang of it and whipped this oysters out.
I think we actually shucked about 45 or so.
Our Blue Rocks friends, Katrina, David and Kerri
all joined us for the feast. Jeff was thrilled to learn
that none of them really liked oysters!
Jeff was not thrilled to learn
that they loved his homebrew!
Shakespeare's Why then the world's mine oyster
takes on a whole new meaning.
Hey Jude, if you eat all good things before Christmas, what remains ?
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