Bit of an adventure with my oyster seed shipment...
These seed shipments from Taylor only go out once a year, usually a Wednesday in August, for arrival Thursday morning. I was really hoping the shipment would get here before 1 p. m. yesterday, because otherwise the tide would be too high for me to set the seeds out on the beach.
By 3 p. m. the shipment still had not arrived, but then I heard a FedEx truck in my next-door neighbor's driveway (she had ordered some seeds as well; her first attempt), and a few minutes later the truck pulled into my drive. I was working in the garage, keeping an eye out for the package to be delivered, but the noisy diesel just idled away in my driveway for at least 10 minutes. At that point I started down the drive, and the driver- a fresh-faced kid who hardly looked old enough to drive- began to back out of the driveway! He was leaving! I chased him down, asking where my package was. He replied that the computer said my package was on his truck, but he couldn't find it. I explained that these were live oysters that needed to get in the water ASAP, and insisted that he look again. He did so, but still couldn't find it. 'Look again,' I insisted, but the third search was similarly fruitless. Frustrated, I asked him what I should do next, and he said basically 'I'm just the driver.' Wow.
After he left I called Taylor Shellfish and explained my dilemma. They were very helpful, saying they'd call FedEx and get back to me (As a shipper, they actually get to speak to a person without being on hold for an hour; have you noticed how FedEx has gone down the tubes since Amazon gave them the boot?). She called me back immediately, but nothing new- the FedEx computer said my package was on the truck that had just left. But she did say that if the oyster seeds did not show up soon, they would make it right.
Two hours later the same red-faced kid showed up at my door with my package. 'I found it,' he said simply.
'Where was it?' I asked.
'In the back of my truck.'
'Really?' I replied. 'Well, no big deal; it's probably pretty easy to overlook such a
small package.'
Ahem.
Fortunately, the oyster seeds looked fine.
I put the seeds into mesh bags, and hung them off my neighbor's dock overnight.
Today I set the seeds into two 'grow bags' and positioned them on the beach just before they were flooded by the incoming tide. I will need to redistribute them into more bags as they grow.
Here is my 'oyster farm' on the beach, containing crops from every year since 2018.
After one year, they look like this-
