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time: 12:30 pm
air temp: 58 F
water temp: 54 F
tide: high @ 2
conditions: NW wind gusting to 25, partly sunny
number of bags: 140
notes: Well, if you live any where in coastal Maine you know we have had a pretty crazy week up here. We've had two fairly significant nor'easters roll through in a week's time, the
first lingering for a few days with more moderate winds and relentless, big seas offshore. The second, which passed through very quickly this past Thursday (two days ago), packed a strong punch to the coastline. Damaging wind gusts of over 50 kts caused widespread power outages and we lost a lot of big old trees, as we do in these storms, something that always makes me so sad.
Fortunately, the farm fared well through both weather events, and this second blow in particular was a good test of how I rigged my gear this year. All the jerking and jostling caused by the wave action resulted in a couple of my bungee closures on my bags getting yanked open and dumping some of my two year old oysters out onto the bottom, but they are big enough to survive quite happily on their own down there at this point, and to be honest they probably are loving life on that hard muddy bottom! I'll be able to retrieve them at a low tide when things calm down a bit and visibility is restored. I'd much rather do some fall snorkeling than lose the gear entirely, and now I know the quick easy solution to storm prep with my gear set up is to just throw a couple zip ties in the bungeed ends of my bags.
In other news, my lease application process has been proceeding along well. I'm now preparing for my scoping session, which is essentially just an open public meeting at which folks who are curious about my hopes to expand can come learn a little bit more. And this afternoon I'll be headed to Portland with my pal Amanda (who grows oysters a half mile south of me off of Lanes Island in Yarmouth) to Thompson's Point to participate in Harvest on the Harbor's OysterFest event, which is being hosted in conjunction with the nice folks at Maine Oyster Company. There will be something like 30 different Maine oyster farmers there shucking oysters! I've packed up a bag full of tea towels and shucking kits and am hoping to sell some of my homemade oyster goodies while there, and to recruit some new farm share customers :) Wish me luck with the crowd! That many people in one room sure does make me anxious.