Saving daylight and a few words about the Gulf

Ah, yes. The sun's started setting earlier this week which means our days on the farm are about to get a bit shorter. For me this means no longer driving to work in the dark -- which makes me feel like I'm part of the land of the living for awhile. But A2 kept joking yesterday that we needed to get a move on since the sun would be setting soon (this was at 2:30). So yes, there's been a shift, albeit slight.

We've also seen all our gorgeous red and golden leaves start to drop, the cranberry bogs flooded and harvested, and the chickens start to fatten up for winter. The winds are picking up (we had what felt like 1-ft waves on the harbor yesterday) and I'm pretty sure we've gone through whatever pleasant fall days this season had in store for us. Oh well.

We had a skeleton crew last week with Berg and Skip traveling to Zanzibar and Will in Houston for a few days. By Friday, it was just A2 and I doing some quiet work on the float. This week, we're back up to speed and have a boatload of work to get done. We still have seed (!) in cages on the lease that needs to be planted. Once that comes out, we still have to pull cages, get our bags put away and make sure everything is stored and secure for the winter (we're stowing everything at a very friendly farm near the water). Lots of busy work, which feels a little like spring cleaning did, but there's a little more urgency since we never quite know what the weather's going to bring.

Right now, our oysters are right about at their peak - Dave and I tried a few on Friday just to be sure - as they are all over the country what with water temps dropping everywhere for the winter. But down south, the Gulf is dealing with a new challenge: the FDA has proposed a new regulation that all oysters harvested in Gulf waters during the summer months need to be processed, or hit with "mild heat or low-level gamma radiation." The regulation wouldn't go into effect until 2011 but the news has been extremely sobering for such a small industry.

Obviously I am a huge proponent of eating oysters raw, especially right out of the water. What this regulation is trying to combat is a bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus which is extremely rare but can be lethal to people with weakened immune systems. It's not something we deal with in New England (fortunately) since the water temperatures stay below a point that propagates the bacteria. But for our friends in the southern oyster farming industry, this regulation, is going to pose enormous challenges and some folks have already spoken out and are lobbying against the ban.

Whatever the outcome, the main message to get across is that we need to support these oyster farmers no matter what. There are an important number of jobs and lives that depend on this industry's success (mine included, now) and all we can do to help is eat more oysters.