1/11/2020

time: 5:31 pm, my living room

air temp: 64 F inside

water temp: really cold

tide:

conditions: sleepy, grateful.

number of bags:

I can hardly believe another year has ticked away, and that it is 2020 already. I survived the holiday season with only a little bit of residual exhaustion, and feel grateful to have gotten in the warm family

time that I did amongst the many oyster orders that I harvested for and delivered.

What a whirlwind few weeks it's been since Thanksgiving! A whirlwind of the best kind, of course. I was so thrilled to bring so many people some briny holiday treats, and even MORE thrilled that so many new customers chose to gift oyster CSAs to their loved ones. I can't wait to get acquainted with the new faces to the farm share program. I also want to issue a special thank you to those of you who are repeat customers at this point, and have chosen to renew your CSAs upon slurping up the remainder of your lot. I'm so excited that this has been a fun experience for you all, and I'm feeling very energized to keep growing and improving it. Along that note, just a reminder that if anyone has any ideas or suggestions for improvement, I am all ears... now that I have a little more down time as the winter storms come and go, I am definitely in brainstorm and planning mode for the upcoming growing season.

Some of the things I'm working on include planning for farm expansion onto my long term lease, should my proposal make it through the process this year as I hope it will. I've been writing grant reports for the wonderful organizations that gave me a boost getting Emily's Oysters up and running this past year, and its been incredibly to look back at how much I've accomplished by myself this year. I surpassed all of my sales and earnings goals, and while my expenses were way higher than I anticipated, I'm still beyond thrilled with my first year progress. I'm also looking on towards the next step in my business licensing that will allow me to reach out directly to restaurants and explore direct shipping options for customers who live outside of my delivery range. A regular (weekly), local purchase point for oyster sales and CSA pick up options is in the works, and hopefully this year will bring lots more Emily's Oysters to your world!

For now, though, I've decided to take a little bit of a rest and reset so I can fully recover from the holiday push and get really amped up about the coming work ahead of me. I'll be delivering oysters this coming Friday, 1/17, but will be taking off the following week for a little tropical respite and not delivering the week of 1/24. Back at it 1/31. Stay tuned for announcements about the following projects over the next few months :)