Haddock is back

Bobby Guzzo explains to me the ten-year time frame to rebuild New England fish stocks.  “Haddock is already back, and we’re only six years into the program.  Believe me, I’m seeing a lot of fish out there.  But if we continue for a full ten years to renew the stock?  Well. we’ll probably have a lot of fish, but there will be no men left who know how to fish for them.” 

I attend a state of Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection public hearing to learn more.  Fishing stocks are on he decline throughout the world.  Some biologists estimate current fish populations are only ten percent of their historic levels.  Even though the United States imports 60 percent of its fish, the American fishing industry is still a multi-billion dollar operation.

As usual, even a dire environmental situation has its skeptics.  Fishermen sit on one side of the room; conservationists on the other.  The DEP representative sits behind a table.  In front of him is a seventeen-page document.  To facilitate discussion, every line in the report has a number, 711 lines in all.  Each line specifies new mandates for species, poundage, and seasonal time  limits.  With strict quotas on popular types of fish such as cod and flounder already in place, fishermen look to diversify into other species.  Horseshoe crabs and spiny dogfish are discussed at length. 

Horseshoe crabs!  Who can take this strange arthropod as a serious crop?  The creature looks more like a small brown tank than a regular crab.  But local fishermen harvest 32,000 of the annually, a large number but well under the 48,000 allowed by the State. 

Stonington fishermen

Bobby Guzzo, captain of the Jenna Lynn, chafes under the federal regulations that govern his work.  He shuffles through a pile of papers looking for a copy of the regulations to show me and notices a power switch is off.

“Jeez!” he says.  “They’re gonna call me.”  He points to a small box on the wall then flips a switch.  The green power light comes back on.  This GPS devise constantly tracks and reports the boat’s location to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection.

Bobby launches into a recap of the regulations.  “I used to be able to fish 48 days in the winter for flounder and cod.  Now they’re cutting us back to 24 day.  Not only that, they say they’re going to cut us back on time we spend in a protected area.  We'll have 50% less time to fish.  And they are cutting the poundage we can land.  It used to be 1,500 pound, but they might change that amount for this winter’s catch.”

“We waste so much!” Bobby says in frustration.  “The Jenna Lynn’s nets are 100 feet wide.  A single drag can take an hour or more.  Once the nets are back on board, the catch rides along a conveyor belt and we sort it.  We’ll pull in three sizes of fish.  Some three-dollar fish, some two-dollar fish, and some one-dollar fish.  So which do I keep?”  He shrugs to indicate the economics are self-evident.  “It’s not like walking through a garden to harvest tomatoes, you know.  I get what I get in those nets.  So I take my three-dollar fish home and throw the rest back.  Some of them might make it after I throw them back, but not a lot.”

The "Calla Guy"

For the most part, I sell flowers to women.  Most men ignore the suggestion to consider a purchase of flowers, or defer the decision to their wives.  But when a man succumbs to the allure of flowers, I have him hooked for the season, so I give these male buyers nicknames.

“The Lily Man” stops to inspect the quality of my early lilies.  We agree that this summer’s crop does not measure up to last year’s.

“We had a wet spring,” I explain.  “In May and June we had almost double our average rainfall.  Lily bulbs hate wet feet.  They tend to get a disease that distorts the flower and turns leaves brown.”

He shakes his head sadly.  I imagine him trying to recreate the scent of lilies which he purchased last summer on a weekly basis.

My calla lilies are scooped up by “The Calla Guy.”  Red-headed and freckle-faced, he hovers around my table with queries.  When will the elegant waxy flower appear?  My supply is still spotty in early July, but he wants to buy a small bunch for $5. The blossoms are puny, I decide to ask only $3. I know he'll be back each Saturday for more.

“Callas were my wife’s wedding flower,” he tell me.  “And her mother carried them for her own wedding.”

He brings his daughter along each week to the market.

“See, honey.” He leans over to show her the bouquet. “We’re going to make Mommy very, very happy.”

One man passes my table with disdain each Saturday.  He does’t respond to my greeting but waits until I am engaged with another customer.  Then he stands back six feet or so and paces while he judges today’s assemblage of blooms.  He resists the delicate Queen Anne’s lace, the fragile profusion of blue hydrangea, the scented glamour of oriental lilies.  In late August, I bring my favorite orange dahlias.  They are as big as dinner plates with petals as orange as Cinderella’s coach.  Along the length of each spikey petal colors change from orange to yellow.  He spots them from across the market lawn and all but shoves people aside to get to my table.  He buys them all. 

Buckets of bloom for our national holiday

I stand in front of my table and greet all market goers with the same words.

“How about some flowers today?”

Behind me is a six-foot long table filled with buckets of 
blooms.  Long-stemmed white snapdragons fill one large, deep bucket, while pink larkspur and nigella combine their beauty in a one-gallon paint-can stripped of its label and painted purple.  The number and size of buckets varies through the season, but there is always a generous assortment of blossoms.  All stay fresh in water and shade provided by a large off-white market umbrella.

For the most part, I sell flowers to women.  A special few approach my table as they would a day at the spa.  For them, flowers are an indulgence to be savored like fine champagne or a bubble bath.  Other women are more traditional.  They buy flowers to cheer up a friend in the hospital or thank a weekend hostess.

On this Saturday in early July, a woman stops by for Fourth of July table flowers.

“Can you make me a bouquet in red, white, and blue?” she asks.

Indeed I can.  I check my buckets for the proper colors, carefully nudge stems out so they do not break and arrange a custom bouquet in a glass vase.  Gorgeous red poppies, a last-minute inclusion picked just before market, looks smashing with drumstick allium.  These members of the onion family are still green but have a great architectural shape.  White feverfew balance blue bachelor button; sweet peas add fragrance; tall white snaps, their stems kinky but still lovable, complete the bouquet.

My customer smiles her approval.  I take the flowers from their temporary container and wrap the stems in waxed paper.  The old-fashioned product keeps the bouquet intact and separates wet stalks for purchasers’ hands.  Money and flowers are exchanged along with wishes for a happy holiday.  

Market begins with a bell

Farmers’ tents and umbrellas line all four sides of the large grassy square.  On two corners different crafts people sets up shop each weekend.  Craft items on offer range from hand made soaps and carved wooden bowls to an interesting collections of recycled and repurposed items.  A picnic table anchors the center of this rectangle.  Here SVIA Board members serve coffee and sell T-shirts and tote-bags bearing our market logo.

As market start-time approaches, buyers arrive to preview the day’s offerings.  A line quickly forms in front of Bobby Guzzo’s tent.  Someone spots the Stonington Reds (our local nickname for deep-ocean red shrimp) and passes the word along.  Across the way, there is a vacant space in the line of purveyors.  Beltane Farms has yet to arrive.  Customers mill about like nervous chickens waiting for supper.  Then, a dark blue van lurches over the curb, and people sort themselves into a proper queue, lined up to buy pillows of chalk white goat cheese rolled in cracked pepper or fresh dill.

The market starts promptly at 9am.  Market rules prohibit sales before that time.  But how to determine exactly when 9am occurs.?  Should we wait for the clock-tower bell to ring at United Church on Main Street?  But that’s difficult to hear on windy or rainy days.  Or should we use our own personal watches to establish the hour?  SVIA has solved the problem by introducing a ship’s bell.  It is never officially 9am until a child rings that large brass bell.   

Over twenty farms come to market each Saturday

Over twenty farmers come to market each Saturday morning.  We arrive, rains or shine, in box trucks, vans, pick-ups.  My farm vehicle is an aged blue station wagon.  Retired from highway driving, it now hauls compost, wood chips and flower buckets.  

Each farmer’s arrival is closely timed: not too much time in the field for a final morning harvest; just enough time to set up tents and umbrellas, tables and display before the start of market.  

The largest vendor, Dondero Orchards, arrives first.  The number of tables Joe and his crew set up expands and contracts with the season, but the arrangement of produce never varies.  It’s fruit to the north, veggies to the south, and baked goods in the middle.  Cartons of red strawberries cover the table surface in mid-June.  By July, blueberries, blackberries and peaches arrive; apples follow later.  Green zucchinis, yellow squash, and purple eggplant overflow their bushel baskets.  Buyer soon reduce multi-pyramids of corn to small mounds of browned silks.  Fruit pies, packed at the orchard store in Glastonbury, take their place at center stage. 

Highland Thistle Farm is next in line. The farm offers huge heads of greens: oakleaf lettuce, arugula, cilantro and kale.  No wilted and pale Iceberg lettuce here.  Dark green Poblanos join red and yellow bell peppers in cardboard display boxes.  Fresh-pulled heads of garlic, stem and leaves still attached, stretch across the entire width of the table.  Blue coolers in the white van hold frozen chicken, lamb chops, and kielbasa.  

Bobby Guzzo, a local fisherman and his partner Lisa Richmond set up next to Thistle Farm.  Cracked ice covers their tabletop.  Transparent plastic bins, cooled by the ice, display the catch: hunks of Block Island swordfish, red ocean shrimp, huge scallops, glossy filets of flounder and cod.  A scale sits nearby, ready to weigh your portion. 

Stonington Borough Connecticut

In July, the emphasis in my life shifts from growing at the farm to selling at the market.  Time in the garden becomes routine: weeding, watering, harvesting.  For the next two months, the most enjoyable part of my work will be selling at weekly markets.  My main sales outlet is the Saturday morning Farmers Market in Stonington Borough, an historic seaside village ten minutes by car from the farm.  The market occurs outside each weekend between mid-May and mid-October.  For the last several years, the same group of farmers have assembled an indoor market from mid-October to mid-May. 

Goeff Little, a Stonington Village Improvement Association board member, inaugurated the market in l998, then became the first Market Master.  The SVIA , founded in 1899, still sponsors the Farmers Market as one of its continuing efforts to promote the beauty and livability of the Borough of Stonington.  Goeff envisioned the market as a “needed service for the entire community and a support for family farms in the region.”  He secured the ideal location for the market: at the Town Dock. 

 The Town Dock is a five-acre open space on the edge of Stonignton Harbor.  It is a hub of activity for the local fishermen.  Three piers provide dock space for the last commercial fishing fleet in Connecticut.  Three types of boats tie up here while in port.  Lobster boats occupy the pier farthest to the south.  These 25 to 35-foot boats set pots in the eastern end of Long Island Sound.  Off-season, carefully coiled lines sit atop metal lobster pots stacked in long rows on the back edge of the dock.  During the summer, clusters of blue plastic bait-barrels hold “ripe” fish carcasses used as bait.

Larger boats take their places at two northern docks.  The “day boats,” 45 to 55 feet long, drag heavy fishnets along the ocean bottom between Block Island and Montauk Point.  As their names indicates, their two-man crews are home each night.  The largest, 75-foot “trip boats,” drag for fish or dredge for scallops far off shore and can be out of port for a week.  Boats with names like “Patti Jo” and “Jenna Lynn” range as far north as the Grand Bank off the coast of Newfoundland. 

Federal grants helped finance a large parking area adjacent to the docks. The Small Boast Association has its storage yard and launching beach here.  Two large lawn areas, each more than a half acre in size, complete the site.  Grass welcomes dog walker, kids playing ball, and on Saturday mornings, participants at the Farmers Market. Securing this location helped make the market a success for the start.  Everyone in the area knows the Town Dock, so it’s easy to explain the location of the market.  Visitors appreciate the generous parking area.  But most important, the farmers have a grassy area to display their wares.  This last is invaluable since veggies and flowers, not to mention vendors and visitors, all wilt on asphalt.