30#/$50 Said the chalk sign by the ice house, just after the curve around the half-buried lighthouse in Mayport, a little past the ferry landing, sorta on the way to Amelia this morning. →[More:] That'd be 30 lbs. of mixed shrimp, for $50, to you Yankees, 'n' bring your own cooler. I toss my coolers on the truck whenever I'm headed up through Mayport, for just such eventualities.

So a couple hours later, on the way home, I whipped into their parking lot, flipped down the tailgate, threw a dollar bag of crushed ice in each of the coolers from the outside box, and pulled over to the retail counter parking. After I gave 'em my $50, they kindly proceeded to fill me up with those awful little grey chunks of bait, and I headed home.

My brother loves shrimp, and I like it well enough, myself. We took the coolers out back on the patio, headed some shrimp, and washed 'em, while the steamer pot came to a boil on the grill burner. It started to rain, but we don't mind warm rain, if there's no thunder or lightning.

By the time the steamer pot was going good, we had 5 pounds or more headed, and we put them on, with some garlic and fines herbes. I have a little butter pot I sit on top of the steamer, and we put that up, too. So we let the first bunch steam, while we kept headin' the rest. Our worthless dog will always whine and belly crawl incessantly, until he gets a pound of heads, so we gave him his tithe.

And then the first load was done, and I popped 'em in the big stainless steel colander, and tipped a little butter over 'em, and we popped tops on fresh beers, and sat there, greasy fingered, greasy mouthed, with warm rain dripping down our noses, and cold beer and fresh shrimp sliding down our gullets, as fast as we could peel and eat 'em.

Nice summer afternoon.

And I've got 25 pounds of steamed, peeled shrimp in the freezer. And one spoiled mutt.

How's your day been?