Monday we will harvest. Larch had a crew of boys for the bulk of the harvest season mid May to the end of June. Now the ladies step in. My friend Casey arrived yesterday; she is getting body work from Larch downstairs. Monday we will paddle out like ducklings in the fog. Our external compass will guide us to the alaria, kelp and kombu. The sun will hopefully be kind enough to unveil the islands; Western Island, Bar Island, Sheep, Sally, Bonny Chess Ledge, Bald Rock and Eastern Island, off these islands we harvest. Meanwhile there is packaging dried seaweed and gardening to be done. Larch’s partner Nina has transformed the garden. I am enjoying watching the two of them work steadily preserving the mounds of soil and vegetables that rose from years of seaweed layered within rocky topsoil. In the fall they tore through the garden with a fine tooth comb removing the switch grass. The tool they used is a more refined pitchfork rake like implement. I tried it out on the buttercup, it gets my vote. Summer is about swimming in small ponds I want to call lakes and cold briny water, eating chanterelles and green things plucked from the garden, singing familiar songs and learning new songs, listening to the quiet, and breaking it with laughter.