Recycled Shrimp

The back story:

Right after Mike and I moved down to Rockport, Mike found an old run down bait stand on the peninsula that we live on that was for rent. Let me tell you how excited he was when he signed the lease! He started fixing it up, buying bait tanks, looking at merchandise to carry, etc. There was a brand new boat ramp that was being built right next to the bait stand and Mike was sure this was going to be a profitable venture! He bought a TON of frozen shrimp from a guy and stored it in one of our freezers until it was time to sell it.

In the mean time, he not only landed a nice contract with Academy, but he also found out that the bait stand.....well, let's just say isn't authorized to be on that parcel of land. So essentially, if Mike had gone forward with the renovations, it could have all been taken away from him from the powers that be. So he walked away from the bait stand, and I still had a freezer full of shrimp!

Fast forward to now:

We have been in a constant clean up mode in the house that we currently live in for the past two years. Taking on projects and trying to make everything better....just like every other homeowner! This past Fall we rented out the bottom portion of our house to a guy who was going to be a cook for a hunting lodge which sits adjacent to us. This meant that we needed to clean up the bottom part of the house ( which is like a finished apartment, totaly seperate from our living area) and this meant cleaning out the refrigerator/freezer that was down there.

We decided there was no way we would ever use all of the bait shrimp, so we needed to get rid of it. The only responsible thing to do was to "give it back" to where it came from, so I headed down to the boat ramp!

Last Fall was my first trip down to the boat ramp with half of the shrimp. It was quite interesting, but I had a blast opening up baggies and throwing out bricks of frozen Gulf Shrimp to the seagulls and pelicans! What a fine feast they had that day!

This past Monday, I took the remaining shrimp and I swear the gulls knew what was in store for them! It was so neat to watch them diving for the shrimp before it hit the water and then flying away quickly with thier prize! I am sure the fish in the water were equally happy with what was floating down their way as well.

I know this is probably an odd subject for a post, but I felt like I needed to write it! It would have been a lot easier and time effective to just bag all of the shrimp up and throw it away, but not only were we being responsible, but I got to see some beautiful birds on the coast! So everybody wins!