Saving daylight and a few words about the Gulf

Ah, yes. The sun’s started setting earlier this week which means our days on the farm are about to get a bit shorter. For me this means no longer driving to work in the dark — which makes me feel like I’m part of the land of the living for awhile. But A2 kept joking yesterday that we needed to get a move on since the sun would be setting soon (this was at 2:30). So yes, there’s been a shift, albeit slight.

We’ve also seen all our gorgeous red and golden leaves start to drop, the cranberry bogs flooded and harvested, and the chickens start to fatten up for winter. The winds are picking up (we had what felt like 1-ft waves on the harbor yesterday) and I’m pretty sure we’ve gone through whatever pleasant fall days this season had in store for us. Oh well.

We had a skeleton crew last week with Berg and Skip traveling to Zanzibar and Will in Houston for a few days. By Friday, it was just A2 and I doing some quiet work on the float. This week, we’re back up to speed and have a boatload of work to get done. We still have seed (!) in cages on the lease that needs to be planted. Once that comes out, we still have to pull cages, get our bags put away and make sure everything is stored and secure for the winter (we’re stowing everything at a very friendly farm near the water). Lots of busy work, which feels a little like spring cleaning did, but there’s a little more urgency since we never quite know what the weather’s going to bring.

Right now, our oysters are right about at their peak – Dave and I tried a few on Friday just to be sure – as they are all over the country what with water temps dropping everywhere for the winter. But down south, the Gulf is dealing with a new challenge: the FDA has proposed a new regulation that all oysters harvested in Gulf waters during the summer months need to be processed, or hit with “mild heat or low-level gamma radiation.” The regulation wouldn’t go into effect until 2011 but the news has been extremely sobering for such a small industry.

Obviously I am a huge proponent of eating oysters raw, especially right out of the water. What this regulation is trying to combat is a bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus which is extremely rare but can be lethal to people with weakened immune systems. It’s not something we deal with in New England (fortunately) since the water temperatures stay below a point that propagates the bacteria. But for our friends in the southern oyster farming industry, this regulation, is going to pose enormous challenges and some folks have already spoken out and are lobbying against the ban.

Whatever the outcome, the main message to get across is that we need to support these oyster farmers no matter what. There are an important number of jobs and lives that depend on this industry’s success (mine included, now) and all we can do to help is eat more oysters.

Notes from Chicago

Matthew and I got to Chicago on Wednesday morning and after solving various phone issues (we were both getting the shakes after a few hours without our Blackberries) stopped into Shaw’s Crab House. We were there for the Royster with the Oyster, which Shaw’s has been putting on for more than 20 years. We made it there in time for the Oyster Hall of Fame dinner honoring Rodney Clark, the newest inductee.

Personally, I find it fascinating that there is an actual place where the biggest, best-known names in oysters (Hog Island, Jon Rowley, Joan Reardon, Rowan Jacobsen, MFK Fischer, and of course, Island Creek) are honored in an official way (and yes, there is an actual hall in the form of a private dining room filled with photos of all the inductees). They get together this time every year to celebrate oysters, reconnect, and honor those who have kept these fascinating bivalves in the spotlight.

The dinner was a hoot. We slurped back oysters (Rod’s Queens, which I was told were about 12 years old, ShanDaphs, and Sand Dunes) opened by Rodney’s 25-year-old son Eamon (a master shucker – Rodney thanked him for “his stroke on the knife to the calcium”) and then sat down to dinner to hear speeches, the reading of letters from those who couldn’t be there and plenty of oyster conversation. Rodney’s Oyster House is up in Toronto where Clark is considered Mr. Oyster. He was an entertaining speaker who kept it short (it was only as long as the number of words that fit onto an airsickness bag, which is what he wrote it on) and referred to his placement in Chapter 11 of Robb Walsh’s book Sex, Death and Oysters as the only way he ever wanted to be affiliated with Chapter 11.

Hendo and I spent the rest of the weekend running around Chicago visiting restaurants with our oysters in tow. A few highlights were peeking into the Alinea kitchen from a side window during service one night (chef Dave probably would have kicked us off our perch if we’d spent one more minute spying on them; chef Grant hardly looked up from his work), being greeted at Charlie Trotter’s kitchen entrance by Mr. Trotter himself, hearing about the Chicago social scene from chef Bruce Sherman (who then sent us to The Wieners Circle for the best charred hot dogs of my life) and two incredible meals at Publican. Friday, we spent awhile chatting up the crew there and got to know owner Paul Kahan who was incredibly gracious and funny (I love that he visits Avec and Blackbird every night but almost always ends up at Publican to shuck oysters and drink a beer).

After Friday’s first Publican visit (we went back late-night for dinner), we went to Shaw’s where Steve LaHaie showed us his new collection of oyster plates (they were a gift from author Joan Reardon).

Eventually, we made it to the Festival where the annual slurp off ended with a win by Jon Ashby … who just happened to be wearing an Island Creek tshirt (we owe that guy a bag of oysters). And please, if you have a minute, you’ve got to listen to this emcee go on about the requirements for winning this contest. He was a riot.

more about "Royster with the Oyster Slurp Off Finals", posted with vodpod

Wild October weather and… finally, I’m heading to Per Se.

I woke on Friday morning to find that the weather was doing exactly what it did my first day of work: wet, snowy, slick, and cold. This isn’t typical for mid-October but we are, after all, in New England. The snow came down even harder this afternoon — Dave and I watched from our living room as the Pats slid all over the field tromping the Titans on a snowy Sunday.

Friday ended up being a wash. We got to the harbor and watched the sailboats bob sideways while Berg and Greg bounced out in the bay on Morris’s boat in the rain only to find that they couldn’t land on the float. The waves were too high for us to be out there so we ended up at the shop working on some farm-gear upkeep for most of the morning.

This time of year is tricky for the crew. We’re all anxious to get the seed planted and get our cages out of the water but with the weather last week, we only made it out on the tide once. We did manage to get a solid night of celebration in – we finally had our crew outing in the city. The guys all took a limo up from Duxbury; Catie and Maggie met us after work/school; and Eva took the train up from Brown. We started at Post 390 for a couple beers and oysters and then moved on to Toro where we ate incredibly well: foie gras with pear chutney, roasted bone marrow, garbanzos with chorizo, smoked duck legs, our oysters with a citrus-y foam, kobe burgers, paella, and of course, a perron of cava.

We ended up at Eastern Standard telling stories and laughing uncontrollably. As always, it was a wild night out with the crew – one we definitely needed after all that hard work this summer (thanks, Skip).

We’ve got some work ahead of this week but I’ll be taking a short break from the farm to head to Chicago with Matthew. We’re going out for the Shaw’s Crab House Royster with the Oyster this Wednesday where we’ll check out the ChicaGourmet’s Hall of Fame dinner and spend a few days doing sales calls. The guys at Island Creek are always part of the event (they’re serving our oysters on Thursday night at the Goose Island beer dinner) and we’re looking forward to seeing our bud Rowan Jacobsen along with (hopefully) some other oyster notables.

And now, the really good news. I just got word that on Nov 12, I’ll be heading down to NY to stage at Per Se (talk about burying the lede here). We very kindly asked chef Jonathan Benno if I could come down for an afternoon and watch as Thomas Keller’s famed New York restaurant prepares one of its signature dishes, Oysters and Pearls … which just happens to include Island Creek Oysters. Thankfully, he’s agreed. We had a visit from one of the restaurant’s chefs this summer (it was part of a couple-week long educational program where the chef went around the country stopping at Per Se’s various purveyors to work for a few days); I’m looking forward to retrieving the favor by spending a day with chef Keller’s kitchen staff. I’ll be trailing the fish butcher and at the canape station plus I’ll get to hang out for a bit during service. Skip and Shore will head down with me to do a pre-meal presentation for the staff and later that night, the three of us will sit down for dinner (my first at Per Se).

I’m trying hard to contain the nerves that comes with something like this. For any chef, spending the day in Per Se’s kitchen is a treat. For a non-chef, oyster farming writer (that would be me) it’s just plain unexpected. Since learning about Island Creek’s relationship with Thomas Keller’s restaurants, I’ve been salivating over the idea of getting into the kitchen to see what they do with our oysters. After all, the whole point of spending this year on the farm was to watch an ingredient go from seed to table. Finally, after months of nurturing, planting, harvesting, and handling our tasty oysters, I get to see what happens to them in the hands of one of the country’s most revered chefs. And then, more incredibly, to taste them while sitting alongside the guy who grows them.

Not bad for a girl on an oyster farm. Right?

The Off Season

What happens on an oyster farm when things slow down? We find more to do.

It’s not that we’re at a loss. We planted some more on Tuesday during an early morning tide and more today during a mid-morning tide. If all goes well, we’ll have all of our seed planted/distributed by the end of next week (fingers crossed for good weather).

This week, though, the wind blew like mad. Tuesday was a brutal day — we rushed out to tide after a 5:30 a.m. arrival, got out to the cages in the dark and the tide just. wouldn’t. move.

We had some water to play with so we got our seed bags out of the cages (something A2 likens to pushing and pulling a crinkly dollar bill out of a vending machine only, you know, 100x the size) and loaded onto the boat. Then we waited for the sun to rise and the water to keep going out. Only, it never really did.

Skip, somewhat frustrated, explained that we were under a high pressure system (as evidenced by the crystal-clear sky — we could still see Orion’s Belt) and that, usually, the tide moves the right way with those conditions. But what we were experiencing felt almost like a low pressure system. No movement (the air, pushed down by that low pressure, keeps the water from moving anywhere quickly) which meant no time to shake and plant. Regardless, our bags were loaded up so we went back to the float to start emptying seed into one of the boats. Skip and Berg would plant with the shovel after all. It wasn’t a total loss. We got to watch the night fade away, the full moon lower and then, finally, the arrival of the sun right on time at 6:46 a.m. For Skip, it was the 4th moon rise/sun rise in a row.

There’s a rhythm to our days on the float now. We wash and bag in the morning and then cull in the afternoons. The crew has little projects to work on here and there and we’re usually in the zone. But I have the feeling all of that will shift, at least for me, in the next few weeks.

We’ve been hatching some travel plans for the fall since that’s pretty much the only down time we have on the farm. Collectively, in the next month, we’re headed to Chicago, New York, France and… Africa (and that’s just for work). Matthew, Lisa and I will hit Chicago for the Shaw’s Oyster Fest; Skip, Shore, and Berg are off to Zanzibar for some research for the Island Creek Oysters Foundation project (which involves starting a hatchery in Zanzibar); Matthew is heading to France; and Skip, Shore and I are working on a trip to NYC to visit Per Se.

It’s not going to be easy leaving the float here and there. But, as Shore puts it: this is the way things go in Oyster Land.

Fall on the farm

As I got to my car one pitch-black morning earlier this week morning, I stopped in my tracks. There was frost on the windshield. Ok, I thought. I’m right back where I started.

sunrise on our way to the float

Luckily, fall seems to be shuffling in just as slowly as summer did. We’ve had some warm days mixed in with cool ones, rain mixed in with some sun. But these frosty mornings are bringing me right back to the beginning when my body was still getting used to spending hours and hours in the cold. Not that I’m complaining. I love bundling up for the chilly mornings and then picking off layers by 10 a.m. Afternoons can be dicey since the wind usually picks up after lunch time. Christian says its due to the drop in water temps over the last few weeks. From now until May whenever we have a warm day the wind will blow like crazy — which makes our time on the float a little rocky. We’ve been watching white caps toss us around while we try to keep our balance out there.

No photos, please

And, once again, it’s just me and the guys. Greg, the Andys, and Will are doing their best to keep me amused and comfortable each day. There’s plenty of time to get the job done so things are relaxed but we can still wipe ourselves out with a hard day of work. We just laugh a little bit more while we’re doing it. We had a visit from Jeeves last week — Joe and Steve are officially splitting up (Joe will be working part-time with a couple different farmers from now on) so they gave us something to remember them by.

Jeeves' depiction of Lounge-Chair Berg

Fortunately, I wasn’t there for their first gift: they tossed a couple of old dead fish onto the float (Will and Berg had a swell time cleaning it up).

Fun and games aside, we’re still planting away. We got another good chunk of our river seed planted this week — just a little more and we’ll be done with the river for the season. Once we pull all of the bags and get the gear out of the water back there, I’ll feel like we’ve made some progress. The seed that we’ve had back there is enormous – the shells are sturdy and each oyster looks nice and healthy.

To get the seed from the river to the boat, we have to unhook each bag from a couple of system lines (long ropes that are moored down into the river bed) and then haul the bags out of the water and onto the boat (feels great on the back). Once we’ve filled two boats with bags (which are stuffed with our fragile seed plus a piece of styrofoam), we get them back to the float and disassemble them so that we can dump the now enormous seed into a big pile into the boat.

a pile of seed ready to be planted

From there, Skip goes out at low tide with his snow shovel and carefully shovels it all out onto the bay floor. Getting him set up to plant is a messy endeavor. The seed’s been back there for months so the bags are not only covered in poop but also mud and the occasional bird feather. Even when I’m covered head to toe in waterproof gear, I get mud everywhere.

Once the seed is in the boat, we then have to get the nasty, dirty bags from the float up to the shop, which requires loading them onto the boat, then onto the truck, and finally off the truck into tidy piles behind the shop. Again, a messy, smelly endeavor but I love watching the piles build. The more bags we put away, the closer we get to the seed being planted. Like Skip said the other day: “You guys spent so much time taking care of the seed, the least we can do is get it out there and keep it growing.”

As for our cull, the oysters we’re pulling up right now are damn near perfect. Each one is strong, sturdy and absolutely delicious. We’ve been shucking around town a little more, too. Last week’s FB party was fun (afterwards at ES was even more so) and the guys were set up at the Post 390 openings this weekend. Everyone seems happy to be out and about around town again. Feels like we can finally enjoy the finish line we’ve all worked so hard to reach.

Lisa and Skip, post-FB party

fun with the Oyster Dude

The more we plant…

…the more we seem to have. We’ve spent the last five days on the tide planting a lot of our seed by hand with the no-fail “fertilizer” method (we walk the bags from the cages to the lease and shake them out one by one to cover the ground evenly).

we walk and shake, careful to get the right amount evenly distributed on the bottom

The seed is almost up to 1.5-2 inches in length but still feels brittle in the bags. Once we get it out onto the floor, the shells immediately start to toughen up. Now that they have space to grow and aren’t fighting for nutrients nearly as much, they’ll really start to pop. By the time the cold water hits them later in November, they’ll be bigger and ready to sleep for the winter.

The plan is to get everything planted in the next few weeks so that we can get all of our gear out of the water and settle in for winter. It’s been a good run with some late tides on Friday and Saturday nights. The crew can get a little cranky at the start of long days like those but everyone’s been in good spirits. Plus, we’ve had the farm’s old friend Meggie working with us all week — she’s actually getting ready to move out to Chicago and take a job in the kitchen at Alinea so we’re happy to have her before she goes.

Finally, with Oyster Fest behind us and the seed nearly planted, fall has arrived. Good thing since Tuesday was the first official day of it. Funny, I’ve never paid close attention to the beginnings and ends of seasons but these last few months have given me a new respect for them. It’s not just being outside in the weather. It’s feeling the cycle shift from one point to the next and reacting to it accordingly. My body has gone from the rigid, achy soreness of a hectic summer to a more relaxed, looser pose. I can breathe a little more easily. My back’s not nearly as tight and my arms and hands are finally able to stretch out and feel good. No, I’m not wimping out (shaking the seed is a ridiculous arm and shoulder workout) but I do feel like winter will be here soon and we can all take a big sigh.

The other good news is that we’ll be showing up with our raw bar at events around town now that we have more time. First stop: The FB Fashion Week Kickoff Party tomorrow night. We did an event at Rialto last week where Michelle Bernstein of Michy’s in Miami came up to cook with Jody Adams. They started the meal with a reception where we found our oysters topped with popcorn (!) and aji amarillo.

We’re also about to hit the sweet spot for oysters. Once the water temps drop, the oysters that are ready to be harvested get really fat and juicy. Definitely the best time of year to eat them… and there will be lots of opps to get out there and eat them on us, including my personal fave, Eat Your Heart Out Boston. Stay tuned.

Oyster Fest 2009

Phew. I finally found some time to sit down and wrap my head around Oyster Fest and just in time: I believe my clothes have finally dried out. It was a one of the wettest 36 hours we’ve had all summer (despite the entire soaking month of June) and of course, it had to fall during the set up and timing of the farm’s biggest party.

The rain didn’t deter the tents from going up (there were delays but they eventually went up) or the rock star committee from getting the bones of the event put together on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning, we woke up to a deluge that tapered off to a windless drizzle and eventually dry skies. The morning was productive, though. With dozens of volunteers plus the tent, lighting and sound crews, the world of Oyster Fest slowly took shape. Committee member Brenda Henriquez and I were busy getting the chef’s stations set up and all of the decorations pulled together (entirely Brenda’s doing and it looked fantastic) while Nancy Bennett and her crew hung the signs. (Her crew included Billy and their grandson Joe who suffered a minor thumb injury and missed the entire party — never run with scissors!)

VIP tent

The morning was a blur but the chefs started to arrive and things quickly moved into high gear. They rolled in one by one: Chris Schlesinger’s sous chef Eric from East Coast Grill with the Caja China (stuffed to the brim with Gourmet — see the story of it below); Jamie Bissonnette of Toro with his pig portioned and wrapped in foil; Louie DiBicarri and Ian Grossman from Sel de la Terre who were full of hugs and big smiles; Jody Adams and her team; B&G’s Stephen Oxaal; Solstice’s John Cataldi with a solar powered-oven; Nick Dixon from Lucky’s Lounge; and Tony Maws from Craigie on Main with his adorable son Charlie in tow. By now the tent and everything around it was shrouded in an incredible fog and I got a call from Will Gilson who was turned around and had traveled halfway out to Saquish before turning around to find us. Jackson Cannon arrived with his bar set up and two super quick helpers from Eastern Standard. Jasper White rolled in around 2 and gave me a big hug before pulling on his chef’s jacket. The jackets, made by Shannon Reed, matched the signs and the motif . Aside from one small typo (sorry, Jeremy), the chefs really seemed to like them.

most of our Oyster Fest chefs

Louie & Ian

Suddenly, I looked up and it was 3:15. The party had started and guests were rolling by. The first hour was filled with families and little kids who were crawling all over the Kids Zone but before I knew it, 4 pm arrived and the beer taps were open. The chefs, picking up cues from the ravenous crowd, started putting out their food earlier than scheduled, which was fine for Skip and I who found ourselves snacking behind the tables once or twice (but probably not for the people in line).

a little taste of Midnight

Around 5, the VIP tent opened and folks started trickling in, eager to try Seth and Angela Raynor’s “oyster crack” (aka: green love), Chris Schlesinger’s Peking roast pork, Jody’s scallops in crazy water, and Jasper White’s razor clam ceviche. Jackson was just getting started with 4 different Grey Goose cocktails when I snuck away to check out the rain situation at 5:30. Consensus? It was a downpour. It would taper on and off but never fully let up until well past midnight (the upside was that we had more than a few fantastic lightning displays). But the troops, all 3,000 of them, carried on unphased. Between the space under the main tent and the confines of the beer tent, most people stayed pretty dry.

I ran over to the main tent a few times to find my crew working their butts off behind the raw bar. The Andys, Will, Greg, Catie, Eva, and Pops were volunteering, Maggie had her art on display (again, more on that below), and we even had an appearance from Quinn in the form of many (many) phone calls.

Our shucking contest culminated with the finals which were up on stage at 9 (I jumped up to time one of the contestants) and wouldn’t you know it, our old friend Chopper won the prize. By then, the crowd was in full swing with the Heavyweights on stage and oysters disappearing like hotcakes. The VIP tent almost took on an open door policy (which Jackson handled remarkably well considering he and his crew were weeded for a good hour) and folks in the main tent were dancing up a storm. I made it to the side of the stage for the last few songs, including one killer performance of “Don’t Stop Believing.”

I ended the Fest sitting on stage in an empty tent with Dave, Nicole, Shore, Skip, and a few others surveying the damage. I had a huge grin on my face and a sigh of relief. It was all behind us and despite a rainy night, we’d survived it.

There was, of course, the inevitable after party at CJ’s house which
involved a kickass DJ and several kegs of Harpoon.

I rolled into bed around 4:30 that morning all amped up and psyched to spend the next few days reflecting on our successes (and few failures), reminiscing about the party, and hearing how everyone else perceived the night.

Now, to the story of the pig. The plan was to give Chris Schlesinger his pig on Saturday morning at the Fest. But Friday afternoon, I got a phone call that went something like this:

Chris: Hey Erin, I have a few questions for you … (two easy questions followed)… and now here’s the hard one. Is there any way we could get our pig delivered into the city today?
Erin: (Pause.) Hmmm. Well. I guess it wouldn’t be… impossible (internal freakout).
Chris: Because, I have to say, knowing that she’s 125 pounds and considering all of the logistics, we really want to get her up here and have a look at her. We’d really like to get to know her a little better, if that makes sense.
Erin: Sure, of course Chris. I totally understand. Let me make a few phone calls and get back to you (more internal freaking).

I pick up the phone, call Matthew, call Berg, call Shore… outcome did not look good. Finally, Matthew agrees to pick up the pig at the butcher in Bridgewater, bring her back to the shop and the plan was I would load her into my Honda Civic (yes, a Civic) and drive her up to Boston around 4 that afternoon.

I head down to the Festival site to start setting up and get a call from Matthew: he and the pig are almost back at the shop, do I want to meet them there? Yes, I said. Be there in 5 minutes *to drive the pig up to Boston.*

Just then, my old friend (and new favorite) Cory shows up and tells me that he is driving one of the vans up to Boston to help Maggie pick up her art in time for the Festival. Would you be able to drop off a pig, I ask? He hemmed and hawed (understandably) and finally said: Yes, Pain. I’ll drive your pig to Boston.

Later that night, I get a text from Maggie: Can I have your email address? Sure, I replied with the address. This is what I received in return:

Along with a note from Maggie:
“So we are going to pick up my paintings and had to deliver a pig on the way. It was quite the site! Crowds were forming. We just got paintings into truck. Success. En route home.”

When I got the message, I happened to be at the Winsor House with Shore, Skip, and Matthew who got an enormous kick out of the photo. Cory was obviously the hero of the night (and if I haven’t thanked you enough, Cory, I owe you big time).

It was just one of the many, many examples of the number of helping hands it took to put this thing together. As Shore said early in the day on Saturday, “Can you believe how many people are working to make this event happen right now?” It was remarkable. We are incredibly fortunate to have had so many people interested in working towards this goal. We raised a huge amount of money for the Island Creek Oysters Foundation and it really was a pleasure to be a part of it all.

And… so… Now what?

I got to the farm this morning after a short day off yesterday and found the harbor eerily empty. It was about 50 degrees and I could taste that crisp bite of Fall. The effects of the party are still heavy in the air (and so are the stories, which keep revealing themselves) but I’m happy to have it behind us — and ready for the summer to fade out slowly.

quiet September morning on the harbor

This little piggy came from Island Creek

There are a few duties at Island Creek that the guys probably didn’t realize fell under their job description. One of them is pig wrestling.

Now, we all knew that our pigs, Gourmet and Midnight, would end up at the butcher eventually. Some guys may not have been prepared for what that would require. But Matt Henderson and Graham Bouthillier were ready. Tasked with getting our massive piggies onto the truck, they arrived at the pig pen at 7 a.m. with gloves, rope, boots, and a 6-pack of Bud tall boys (for the pigs… and themselves). After some sweet talking, a few dabs of beer, and two dozen donut holes, the pigs were under the impression that aside from the growing number of onlookers and the truck parked nearby, life was going to be ok.

getting prepped

born free

And then Hendo roped Midnight and unleashed hell.

I won’t go into details (it was ear-piercingly loud and pretty tough on the guys) but will say this. It takes 1 dozen Island Creek farmers to get two pigs into the back of a truck: 4 to wrestle them, 3 to lift them, 2 to soothe them after it’s done, 2 to photograph it and 1 to supervise.

Don watches over the mayhem

Thankfully it all ended well and the whole display was really a testament to how these pigs were loved their entire lives and treated with kindness, respect, and a whole lotta pastry. Their sacrifice for the cause did not go unrewarded. Hendo and Graham saluted the pigs with a tall boy and drove them down to our butcher on Wednesday.

So, here we are, 4 days before Oyster Festival. The pigs have been butchered (sorry, kids), the tents arrive tomorrow, the tuna has been caught (before the high seas we’re expecting today, thankfully) and the razor clams are coming up today. What else could we possibly need? Oh right, sunshine.

Forecast right now calls for wind and rain today with more on Thursday, more rain Friday and then, fingers crossed, a few clouds giving way to sun on Saturday. We’ve got tickets left and PLENTY of food, including about 40,000 oysters, which has the farm in a tailspin. All of the crews have been cranking to get their oyster donations in before Saturday and get ahead of the weather. It’s been hectic but I’m convinced that our efforts, along with the pigs’, will make for an absolute stellar day on Saturday. Hope to see you guys there.

(Also, quick note: FOX 25 did a great job with this clip about my experience on the farm. Gives you a really good sense of why I’m doing this and what we do at the farm all day.)

End-of-summer storms

Considering we’ve only had about six weeks of summer, I truly hope this isn’t the end of our nice weather. But the summer crew is gone, Oyster Fest is less than two weeks away, and now we’re dealing with hurricane season. Must mean fall will be knocking.

Last week, reality set in: We finished working on the seed and completely dismantled the upwellers. It was one of Catie’s last days on the farm so it was only appropriate that we wrap it all up (in her four years working there, she’s never been around to see the upwellers go completely empty… or taken out of the dock). We did our final grade on half-inch screen on Thursday, ending up with plenty of seed to go into the nursery. While we normally would have planted it all immediately, we were looking at an oncoming hurricane — planting would have been a bad idea before a storm that size blew into the bay. So we locked it safely into the walk-in cooler at the shop (where it will stay cool and safe) and will get it into the nursery at some point this week.

While Catie and I finished the grade (and a little reminiscing: “remember how brutal those first lousy weeks of June were?”), the guys took the upwellers out of the dock. This project required a little bit of finesse (we have all those rowing boats to dance around) and a whole lot of brute strength (we have A2). Once the motor and bolts were taken out, the guys systematically lowered the trough to empty the water out, then tied some line through the pipe holes so that four of them could lift it out and put it onto the boat.

the giant box we call a trough

It wasn’t without its frustrations (or laughs) but we got everything pulled out and put away before lunchtime. Friday, we spent the day storing it all away which required many trips back and forth between the water, the shop, and the farm where we’re keeping all of the big stuff. We also spent the morning securing our float in the Bluefish River. I thought moving it ten feet last winter was a big deal but this required separating our two floats, attaching the soaker float (the long flat one which has baskets underneath it where we soak our oysters to keep them cool in the heat) to our mooring in the bay, and pushing our garage float (with our little Carolina boat) all the way over to the river where it would be protected should Hurricane Danny decide to blow super hard.

new digs

Of course, the weekend came and went and we survived the storm. But we also had several inches of rain come down on Saturday alone which means the State has shut us down for a few days. Since our oysters are filtering about 30 gallons of water a day, they’re eating up whatever’s been washed into the bay. Of course, once the waters even out and our oysters are filtering clean water again, they’ll be perfectly fine to harvest. (These types of things don’t bother oysters who are happy to just sit around and eat all day. Must be nice.) Once the State comes back down to check the waters (probably tomorrow) we’ll be able to harvest again. Hopefully there won’t be any hiccups because we are going to need some serious numbers in time for Oyster Fest.

Last year, Dave, our friend Nicole, and I all went down and enjoyed an afternoon on the beach, slurping back oysters and plenty of Harpoons. This year, I’ve gotten to be a part of the planning which I’ve really enjoyed. And keeping the focus on putting on a green and eco-friendly event has been the coolest part. Not only do we have our pigs ready to go (to the slaughterhouse tomorrow, officially), but the 18 chefs who are coming down are all set to whip up dishes made from a ton of local ingredients: Duxbury striped bass, scallops, razor clams, tuna, heirloom tomatoes, and plenty of our oysters. We’re recycling our oyster shells (40,000 to be exact) and using completely compostable dishware and glasses. Pulling it all together has been a pretty smooth process; now it’s time to settle in and enjoy it. And we’re still selling tickets!

Planting the Seed

Skip’s crew might be dwindling but we’ve still got plenty of work ahead of us. We’ve got an acre or so of open lease to plant; like any other farm or crop rotation, after a crop has been harvested, the land has to be cleared before you can plant again. We’ve spent the summer picking it clean and now we’re filling every last corner of it with new seed. (And to answer a Mom question, there are other sections of the lease that are packed with full-grown oysters which were planted last year.)

Skip is taking a break from “shovel” planting to try a hand at hand planting. We’re planting onto a part of the lease that’s just north of the cages (nursery) where the seed is being stored so for the next few days, we’re carrying bags from the cages straight over to the lease, opening them, and emptying them out by hand into a small square area. This is a pretty cool set up since we can shake the seed right onto the ground when the tide is out and see what kind of density we have in that spot. Shaking the bags feels a little like operating a fertilizing machine. You hold the bag horizontally and shake it carefully from side to side while walking backwards so that you can cover a small line of area with a consistent number of oysters. Between Monday and Tuesday we put down thousands of oysters into a fairly small window of space. The seeds are still only about 3/4 to 1 inch long and they’re all set pretty close together. Imagine that same space in about a year when the land is covered in three-inch oysters. Pretty incredible that we can get so many of them into a condensed area. But, as I keep saying, there’s still a ton of seed.

Speaking of which, we may be at the tail end of our upwelling season…finally! Having watched and been very much a part of the process from the beginning, I can say that it’s a fascinating system. Force feeding the oysters in a controlled environment produces an incredible yield. (But it’s not without its headaches: at the very whisper of nearby Hurricane Bill this weekend, the Maritime School almost pulled all of their docks — and our upwellers — out of the water. Thankfully, the storm went far enough east so we we able to keep everything intact but the idea of getting the seed moved and possibly disassembling the upwellers was a major hassle. The only good thing that storm produced was some huge swells for Berg and Greg to ride on Sunday afternoon.) We’ll probably do our last grade tomorrow and get that seed into the nursery. (It will be the last seed we plant later this season.)

Besides completing my tasks as Mama Seeda for the season, I’ve been able to spend more time on the float with the crew. Sadly, we’re getting down to bare bones: today is Maggie’s last day for the summer and Catie is out after Friday (she’s taking a job as an eco-consultant in Burlington). But I have the feeling both will still be around quite a bit over the winter — at least they better be. On Monday, it’ll be back to me and a crew of guys: A2, Berg, Will & Greg. It’s a good number for the fall so I think we’ll have plenty of hands to get work done. It’s just so hard to believe that summer might be coming to an end. Didn’t it just get started??

some of the summer crew