From sunset to sunrise.

Phew. What a week. I swore I'd be better about posting. But these last few weeks have had me scrambling between life on the farm and everything else. Not that I'm complaining. I can't decide what I'm more grateful for: the fact that my job keeps me out on the water all day or that it has almost completely removed the computer from my life. It was another typical, summery weather week. Some sun, a few showers, and one massive storm that hit on Thursday night. Luckily, the beginning of the week was clear. Chef Jeremy Sewell brought his kitchen crews from both Lineage and Eastern Standard, along with some friends, out to the farm for a tour and dinner. They started on the docks with a look at the upwelling system and then made their way out to the tide to check out the nursery. Eventually, they landed on the float where they cracked open some Harpoons and waited for dinner.

Skip had been out early that morning pulling up his lobster traps and digging steamers for his guests. The haul was huge and he'd been on the float that afternoon setting up for dinner. Apparently, when Skip hosts a float party, he goes all out.

He and Shore pulled together a great meal with little more than a few steam kettles, some sea water and some rock weed. And, of course, plenty of melted butter. The kitchen crews were clearly impressed... and probably more than happy to let someone else take over dinner for the night.

After dinner, and a few more drinks, the crowd got a little rowdy.

And before we knew it, they were all in the water.

Exactly how it should be, Skip said.

The crew had to catch a bus back to Boston but a few of us hung out on the float for my first sunset from the water.

And, of course, it was followed a few short days later by my first real sunrise on the water. We had a big drainer week and on Thursday, we made it out on a 6 a.m. tide just in time for the sun to come out.

We spent both Wednesday and Thursday on the tide pulling in plenty of hand picked oysters and cleaning up the nursery a bit. The cleaning went quickly since there were so many of us. Looking down the row of cages at our army of a crew made it feel like effortless work. But we still managed to get ourselves caked in mud.

Thursday night's storm had Skip down at the water at 3:30 a.m. where he said he could hardly stand up due to the wind. The waves were crashing up and over the docks where our upwellers live. One of our boats actually got ripped off the dock but thankfully, he was there to pull it back in. Friday morning there were sailboats up on the rocks by the Maritime School and the harbor looked disheveled in general. We didn't make it out on the water that day but still managed to get some organizing and work done at the shop.

Yet another busy summer week. But oddly enough, I'm starting to get used to it all.