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| Hard at work |
It's low tide in Maine and the mud flats are busy places. This is the "workplace" for wormers and clammers. It's hard, it's back breaking but it's constant; the tide changes every six hours.
A wormer will dig a row picking out all of the worms large enough to sell, bloodworms and sandworms, used for bait by fishermen in New England, other East Coast states and California. The pickings are placed in trays - 125 at a time, the dealers who wholesale the worms pack them in seaweed in 125 or 250 pound crates and they are sent to market. Each person in the chain is careful to keep only the worms large enough for sale, the small ones are returned to the "flats" to make sure there is always work.
It's not a high-paying job, in 2010 wormers sold each worm for twenty-four cents, one couple recently sold 1065 worms dug during a days work, the paycheck - about $235.00, you need a lot of "good days" like that to fill a home oil tank during the winter.
Wormers work year round, so it's either hot and hard, or bitter cold, with swollen hands, and hard. But, the people who dig are proud of their profession and will do the work for years.
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| Anna German |
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| Richard Sprague |
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| Walter Rhode (click to enlarge) |
I seen this on Dirty Jobs, would not be for me.
ReplyDeleteWilbur