Oystermom, helping create oyster aquaculture in Florida

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Amber Alert - my babies are gone!

It was Saturday, April 2, 2016.  Michael and I were on the water for the first time since Matt Hodges and I had readied 1350 oysters for market on Monday, March 28.  Matt and I had also moved my remaining 42 baskets from the Wakulla Environmental Institute's Research and Education Lease to my lease in Oyster Bay.  It had been a long day and a hard day of work on that Monday with Matt.  I felt good about all we had accomplished.  I was happy to have all my oysters in one place.  That following Thursday, Matt picked up the 1350 and took them to WEI - a donation for a Chamber of Commerce event that would be held on Sat April 2.  They wanted my oysters as they were large, beautiful, perfect.  Michael and I tended to sorting and starting my system for organizing now everything was in one place - and then we noticed that 2 of the 6 mm baskets holding my new spat, the O'Malley's as I had named them as they had been delivered on St Pa...
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Gucci on the water

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We were flying across the water - following a fellow oyster farmer who was in a tunnel bottom boat with a Jack Plate.  We were both racing to the oyster leases to catch the low tide before it began to rise.  Then he almost got stuck in that magical boat that seems to only need a coating of water over the Bay's muddy bottom.  And he raced on leaving us stuck. Seriously stuck.  We exited Ginny, my 19' Carolina Skiff, and sank knee deep into the mud.  We tried to push, pull, then rested. It was impossible.  Only more water would be of help.  And then, I decided to fiddle with the Lowrance which had again given me fits.  I took off my prescription polarized Gucci sunglasses and put them on my head.  A habitual action, but I had my warm hat on so they really didn't hug my head as they normally do.  And then, it happened.  I leaned over to look at the water depth and they fell into the water.  It was only 8 inches,...
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We Keller Women

Somewhere along in the 1960's, my grandmother Anna Keller bought a shinny new white Chevy Impala with red leather interior.  She saw it on the car lot and bought it right then and there.  The thing was, she had never driven a car.  It had just gotten to the point in her long independent feisty life that she wanted her own transport.   She enlisted help from a neighbor to teach her the basics and a few days later showed up at our house that was 100 miles to the west.  This was not the first time Anna had surprised us with her strength as a single mom.  She had raised her 12 brothers and sisters and my dad with firm ear pulling and fine example. Last year at the start of my own Oyster Aquaculture operation, husband Jack informed me his boat was NOT a working boat and would not be available to me for oystering nor would he be dedicating his time to serve as captain. I scrolled through Craigslist and other boat classified ads each night u...
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