A thousand apologies that I have blipped a bit the last week, I have 80% written the next post for Wild Woman Journeys and will post tonight, but thought I could explain why I have not been up to date. I have been working, day and night in the winter cold packing mussell spat.
take a look.
There are alot of jobs and businesses out there that Im sure we never even know exist. The stages in producing something that is never known. I have one of those jobs, I work with 'mussel spat', the stuff that is needed before mussels can grow on mussel farms. So here is a look at the job we do every winter.
take a look.
There are alot of jobs and businesses out there that Im sure we never even know exist. The stages in producing something that is never known. I have one of those jobs, I work with 'mussel spat', the stuff that is needed before mussels can grow on mussel farms. So here is a look at the job we do every winter.
Kellys family work in the Marine Agiculture business so every winter season we have a quota to fill for mussel spat which is pretty much mussel babies. The only place in New Zealand that you can get this spat is here in the far north, it washes up on our West coast, a very long beach called 90 Mile Beach. This is where we get onto the beach to start our beach runs, which is driving for miles rain or shine, day or night, looking for dark patches of seaweed in the water
Looking south down the beach.
The spat washes up on certain winds and moon phases and is collected onto trucks and brought home to be packed.
The spat attaches itself to seaweed and looks like little crystals and like little mussels when they have grown bigger, you can see some in this photo, attached to the left of this seaweed.
So spat is a crystal like thing and it is attached to the seaweed, it is not the seaweed!
working with seaweed isnt as gross as it sounds, its so fresh from the sea so it dosent smell, maybe just a bit cold when its midnight and your in a cold garage sorting the wet stuff with an aching back from hours of work that you question your sanity.
it has to be sorted to remove sticks, sponge and shiny weeds, the stuff on the floor is rubbish and is returned back to the beach.
Somedays its a very messy job
there are sooo many types of seaweed all tangled together
and we use a conveyor to sort it so it can be packed in 10kg bags
which are packed on ice into a truck and then delivered all over NZ to the mussel farms
like this, you can see the mussels hanging down on the vertical ropes
so next time you eat some New Zealand Green Lipped Mussels you know where they have come from
and you also know my reason for being just a little bit late with my E-Life, I guess the real life will always come first in the end, gotta make the moneys people!
Spat has NO routine, it ruins many a party of trip away with its ability to turn up just when you have something awesome organised, spat waits for no man!
Thats why Kelly refuses to do it anymore, and went and got another job!
Me? I still love it xxx
So see you all again tonight
with our new Wild Women Topic
with our new Wild Women Topic
*GRACE*
Love Ya
xxxx
Sheree
Thank you for teaching me about spat. I had never even heard of this, but it sounds kind of fun. :)
ReplyDeleteWow! I think I would really enjoy doing that.
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you.
That is so cool...............
ReplyDeleteThis is great to read. I didn't know you had famous mussels over there too. I live in The Netherlands in the province of Zeeland ; ) Which is famous for its mussels.
ReplyDeleteHave a magical day.
Thank you for this post, Sheree. It was something new that I learned about you - and what gorgeous photographs to illustrate it. :)
ReplyDeleteI was enthralled! How interesting....you're right, I had no idea! Glad to be back on the net learning new things about one of my favorite people ;D
ReplyDeleteWell you learn something new every day! Great to be outdoors in all that fresh sea air.
ReplyDelete