I drove home last night in the thick of the fog. I thought that was bad, Larch says when he does morning chores on nights like that, he drops the anchor and then wonders which direction to row to get to shore. He depends on the compass to get him back to shore.

This week we probably won’t do much harvesting. The low tides will get higher each day for the next week or so- if some visitors show up we may go out. but the tides will be great for harvesting out in the bay around the 20th, the new moon.

So today I packaged a bunch of seaweed for Larch and I. We have lots of nori in stock so I will add it to my varieties. A bunch of trees were cleared from the parking lot today- in a few days we will have one major brush fire going. The trees were cleared because Larch is planning on building all new seaweed buildings- a bigger drier and a new boat building shed and packaging room and crew quarters.

I had a fabulous weekend visiting friends in Brookesville. A few bands played in the barn, I got to catch up with lots of wonderful people that have been out in New Mexico. I played at the open mike, I saw eurythmy for the first time, I played uke with friends and made some great contacts that live back in Western Mass where I am living for most of the year. Oh! and I got to see some of the pieces of wood working that my friend Nate made since I was last in Maine and they are beautiful! He may come and help me get some work done on my chairs.

I don’t know how people can live happily when they aren’t living in community or at least knowing that they have really amazing people out in that world to love and support them!

That’s something that is really amazing about Larch’s approach to his business. His customer base is huge and he’s actually had conversations with a lot of them- when he offered me the opportunity to sell seaweed the idea was to build a customer base by direct sales- from my hand to yours. I spent half the winter educating people about seaweed at the Providence indoor farmers market. I definitely thrive when I am able to reach out to people that way. Larch spends hours connecting with people through phone conversations, email, letter writing… it’s not just about selling and making money. It’s about understanding the nature of plants we are working with and the lifestyle that comes with the work- this experience and knowledge is then shared with the customers. So if you want to know what you’re eating I suggest you talk to your farmers, harvesters, gatherers… we all have our stories. I like to be fed by stories, food, music, nature…

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