{"id":7068,"date":"2019-03-21T16:22:01","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T20:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jenniferbooher.com\/wp-walking\/?p=7068"},"modified":"2019-03-21T16:22:04","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T20:22:04","slug":"fiona-de-koning-hollander-dekoning-mussel-processors-trenton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jenniferbooher.com\/wp-walking\/fiona-de-koning-hollander-dekoning-mussel-processors-trenton\/","title":{"rendered":"Fiona de K\u00f6ning, Hollander & DeK\u00f6ning Mussel Processors, Trenton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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On November 20, 2017, I met up with Fiona de K\u00f6ning at the Hollander & DeK\u00f6ning<\/a> building in Trenton. We had met a few years earlier through the Frenchman Bay Partners<\/a>, a group of people and organizations that have an interest in conservation of the bay. Fiona\u2019s family raises Blue Mussels (Mytilus edulis<\/em>), and one of their aquaculture sites is at Hadley Point on MDI, bringing them within the purview of the Coast Walk. She\u2019s familiar with the project, so I called her up and asked if I could fling questions at her for an hour or so, and she good-naturedly agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, what do you need to know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, I’m walking around the edges of the island asking people, “What do you do here, and how did you end up doing it?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        That’s\ninteresting. So whether it’s recreating or working or living or those sorts of\nthings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Yes. It’s all\nrelative to how we occupy and use the shoreline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well we’re pretty much webbed-feet wading birds, we use the shoreline [so much]! We’ve been here 12 years. We moved from the Netherlands. \u2026 My husband is a fifth-generation mussel farmer, and he felt very intensely that you shouldn’t just glide on the work of the people who’ve gone before you \u2026 so he thought we should look at starting a farm. \u2026 We felt [we] could slot in alongside things that were happening here already, and [our business] has the kind of sustainability factor that also seems to fit well with the mindset of Maine. It was a new [type of] project for Maine. They were still very much wild-fishery-based here, and \u2026 people need to be able to do this more sustainably. Plus the location, close to lots of people but not actually right in the middle of [development], so you’ve got the clean [environment] that you need to grow seafood. So we moved our family – our two elder children were 15 and 16 at the time – they went to MDI High. One joined freshman year, and one joined as a sophomore, and they went on to university in Husson. Charlotte works in Presque Isle as a first-grade teacher, and Alex has a Chemical Engineering degree, and he works with us. Our youngest is an 18-year-old so he’s still studying and working part-time for us, too. \u2026 We have five sites around the island, and we manage those areas to grow blue mussels, which we process in this building. [We] ship mostly down to Boston, but in the summer quite a lot [are] distributed in Maine as well. We live in Salisbury Cove, \u2026 so we have kayaks down at the beach. We have a sailboat, we have a motorboat, we have rowboats, and we’re always down there<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nice!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So yeah, it’s all marine stuff, and it’s a passion of mine, as you know. It’s a responsibility thing – we enjoy it and we want to take care of it, so we want to [run our business] properly. That means doing it well, which means doing it profitably, because you can’t do things well if you’re having to cut corners all the time. You have to be proud of what you can grow, and let it be a sort of an ambassador for the area if you will, and in order to do that you have to make sure that you take the responsibility seriously. So we really are the embodiment of a sustainable operation. \u2026 They’ve been doing it in a similar way since the time of Napoleon, more or less. So it’s not something that we’re reinventing, we’re just trying a slightly different way of growing them here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          How did you\nget into this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        I married into\nit. Theo is a fifth generation [mussel] farmer. … Anything marine-based, it\ntends to be your life. Any farming sort of operation, you tend to live it as\nwell as do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How did you end up on MDI?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Theo was\nlooking for a business opportunity, and we saw that it was a good environment,\nand it looked like the resources were good to start this product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          What kind of\nresources were you looking for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Well you need\nclean water. You need to have some shallow muddy areas. … We felt that [mussel-farming]\nwould be compatible with the lobster industry. [Ed.note: because they use a different type of sea-bottom, the mussel\nfarm wouldn\u2019t impact lobsters.<\/em>] That’s an important factor, because \u2026 you\ndon’t want to get in the way if you’re starting something new. And we just fell\nin love with the island. Theo came here exploring and looking for opportunities\nand finding out about businesses and that sort of thing, and he basically\ndidn’t come home. I got this call, “Okay, sell the house, pack up the\nkids, I’ll see you in Maine.” He found a house here, and I kind of wrapped\neverything up over there. I think it was only about seven or eight months from\nmaking the decision to actually moving across. I’m being a bit flippant about\nit, but our children were old enough to be involved in that decision. We\nbrought them to see it, and as soon as they got hiking in Acadia they were\nlike, “Yeah, we’re sold. Bring us as soon as you can.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The de K\u00f6ning family. Photo from Hollander & Dekoning website.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Oh that’s\nawesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        And they didn’t\nwant to leave the state for college. They just love it here. It was hard work\nat the beginning. It was really hard. It’s still hard – when you start\nsomething from scratch there are a lot of things you need to learn, and it\ntakes a little time to build your reputation in the market. It doesn’t come\novernight. Alex is our eldest. He wasn’t sure whether he could bring that sort\nof commitment, so he got a degree in something that he was good at, because\nhe’s good at Mathematics and Engineering, and then he didn’t want to go and\nwork in some industrial hub somewhere else. He just loved it here so much. Everything’s\nconnected and interconnected, on a personal level and on business levels. We’re\nall kind of working together in a place. People don’t tend to stay on the\nisland if they don’t appreciate what it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          You have to be\npretty determined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        You do. You\nhave to really want to stay here. Because eking a living out doing anything is\nnot easy. And it’s worth it though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I think so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        It really is,\nyes. We looked at other places along the coast. We could have perhaps located\nin Camden or somewhere closer to the Midcoast, but it just gets into you, the\nisland, it just gets a hold of you. Somebody said to me once, “Oh you’re\nnot one of those dreadful people that’s totally satisfied with just MDI.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          What do you\nmean, “just”?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        I know. I was\nastounded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Yes. I mean I\nlike to go to cities every now and then, get a museum fix, but …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yes,\noccasionally, but I went to college in London, so I’ve done a lot of that in\nthe past. And if you live in the Netherlands, which I did for 10 years as well,\nit’s very much more crowded, so there’s a lot of things easily accessible\nbecause it’s all close together. So I’ve kind of done that, but the wilderness\nand the wildness and the openness and room to breathe, … it’s so peaceful. \u2026\nI don’t leave even for vacation. We hike and bike and enjoy the park. There’s\njust so much to explore. We’ve been here 12 years, there are still places I\nhaven’t been and want to go. We go out and explore the outer islands a little\nbit with boats \u2026, so it gets very busy. I tend to be more or less floating all\nof the summer. I’m not really on land very much at all, because \u2026 the views and\nwildlife, whales, I mean you see everything here. It’s just a little bit of\nparadise, quite honestly. Isn’t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          And I love the\ninterconnectedness of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Right, and\nthat’s what lovely coming into the fall and winter time. I mean I like it that\nit’s busy because you get a totally diverse mixture of people on the island all\nsummer. It’s fantastic, I love it, and I also like it when it calms down and\nyou just get the community and you catch up with people you haven’t seen all\nyear, and all the activities that are going on. It’s just nice with theater and\nmusic, and everything’s happening all the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I usually find\nthat it is just as busy, but in a different way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Isn’t it? But\nit’s in a more tight-knit kind of way, don’t you think? The community has time\nto breathe and actually focus on each other again, instead of serving the needs\nof all the people that are around you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jenn:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m interested in mussels themselves, and also in what you guys are doing with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They are wonderful creatures, and worldwide, very little is known about them really. I mean however long they’ve been food for people, people just don’t understand how their lifecycle works. There’s a lot still to learn about it, and with any farming, it’s a very long-term sort of commitment, because as you’re developing the area that you’re farming … I mean you know we don’t actually own the ground? It’s public trust ground where the farm sites are. The way it works in Maine is that anything below … well, there’s some controversy about whether it’s the high-water or low-water mark, but basically sub-tidal, out until 12 miles out to sea, is under the state control, and it’s held in public trust. So it’s owned by all the citizens of Maine. [Ed.note: Maine is one of only a few states in which property lines can run out to the low tide line. In most states, they end at the high tide line. Not all land parcels were drawn up to include the low tide area, but many were. For more information: http:\/\/www.accessingthemainecoast.com\/common_law_and_statutes\/common_law_and_statutes.shtml<\/a><\/em>] If you would like to be granted certain privileges for working in that area, via licenses or leasing or that sort of thing, you have to go through a process that is quite rigorous. It takes two to three years to go through that process, and then you’re granted it for a certain amount of time, and there are responsibilities coupled to that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Aquaculture lease options in Maine<\/a> For more information, check out the Aquaculture page on the Department of Marine Resources website.<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The lease regulations are quite well-managed. Even from a global perspective, they do a nice job, and it needs to be managed well, otherwise you can have people who are not … whether it’s short-cutting because of financial pressures, or lack of knowledge or whatever, mistakes can be made which are going to impact things for everybody. So it’s important you have a well-regulated system to lease areas to do farming. But as you learn that area … like in a garden, [each area] has different characteristics, and it grows things differently, and it’s the same with mussels on mussel farms. They have slightly different shell formation, color can be different, their growth rates can be different, the flavor can be definitely different from area to another. So there are a lot of nuances, and you’ve got to be a bit of a mussel freak to notice all of that. But it is interesting, and certainly it’s never dull. There’s always some factor or characteristic that’s changed. Everything’s a year apart at least, if not longer, because of the cycle and because of how long it takes to grow in the summer season, and the winter season and what can affect things in between. Finding causality can be quite difficult, so you’ve really got to keep your mind applied to it – observation, evaluation, try to figure out, \u2018okay, so why’s this different this time?\u2019 It’s not an exact science, at least it’s not for us. I think even with scientific back-up it’s not an exact science. There are too many factors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So how do you\nfarm mussels?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Okay. Well\nthere are several ways to grow mussels, but we grow them on the seabed. Aquaculture\nmeans you take seed [Ed.note: baby\nmussels roughly the size of a sunflower seed<\/em>], you put it in an area and\nyou help it to grow out to market size. During that process all sorts of things\ncan affect it, and it is our job to try and maximize the growth and the health,\nso it’s not just big, but strong so that they transport well and the flavor’s\ngood. So there’s a lot goes into it. … There are mussels everywhere in Maine.\nI think in southern Maine they’ve had more of a problem. Maybe it’s acidity or\nthe substrate, but something’s affecting \u2026 the wild population. But mussels are\nvery resilient, they’re found worldwide, and they can thrive under considerable\npressure from various environmental factors. So they’re good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Baby mussels: photo by <\/em>Bailey Mortiz on the Hurricane Island blog<\/em><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

                       They\nreproduce themselves by making spat. They spawn into the water. \u2026 There’s a\nplankton phase, and they float in the water column for about two weeks. [They\ngrow into] tiny little mussels which are on a thread, a bit like baby spiders\nare, \u2026 and they go with the tide. As they get more calcified, they start to get\nheavier. We don’t know what triggers this, but the tiny little mussels seem to\nsense what’s below them, and if they come to an area that they sense is good\nmussel bottom, they all let go of their threads at once and they rain down in\nhuge quantities – that way they outnumber their predators. That’s their\nsurvival technique, otherwise they get eaten by pretty much everything. That’s\nhow a new seed bank will form. Now if you leave that seed bank for a while as\nit is, most of it will die. It’s about 98% mortality, because they suffocate\neach other, they compete for food, [they get eaten.] They’re basically too\ndense to make it. We thin them out \u2026 by a certain percentage…. I’m saying it\nvery quickly, but there’s a lot of monitoring, measuring, permitting. You’re\nbeing observed as well. We have a GPS tracking position voluntarily on our\nboat, so that the DMR and the Marine Patrol can see what we’re doing where\nwe’re doing it. We’re really on the front edge of the policy formation around\nmussel farming here in Maine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Good for you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And I love it, but it’s a long process. \u2026 This is too important to allow everybody to have a free will on it, because you can impact [the environment] for further generations. So it’s my personal position that this needs to be managed properly, with the [view] that everybody should have access to it. You mustn’t close it out, but if you’re going to use the area then you need to use it properly and it needs to be monitored and enforced. In order to do that, we use a protocol [from] the Netherlands for harvesting wild seed. It has a Marine Stewardship Council certification over there. So we use that protocol with a few things that are different. It’s a very expensive process to go through that certification, and for one small company, particularly in the start-up phase, that’s really not possible to do. But \u2026 we’re using those standards to develop our farm. We’re volunteering information to our state regulator, saying \u2018this is what we’re doing, this is how we’re doing it, this is the code where you guys can track our boat,\u2019 and that way it’s all open and transparent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\nthinning [the seed bank] out, you allow the ones that are there more room, and\nmore food, and so they can spread out and they have a more successful chance\nfor reaching maturity, plus you take the [harvested] ones to lease sites which\nare selected for good conditions to reach maturity. So they both reach sexual\nmaturity, whilst otherwise if you’d left them where they are, predominantly\nthey would have died. There’s no net depletion, that’s what I’m really trying\nto say. It’s possible to grow seed on ropes, but you need suspended equipment,\nlike buoys and rafts and things in the waters. It’s more difficult for people\nto accept that form of aquaculture than it is for [farming] on the bottom,\nwhere all you’ve got to mark it are buoys that could be lobster buoys, nobody\nwould know. So it fits in with people’s feeling of how Maine should be. We feel\nthat it’s kind of a good fit. And it grows a lot of food. There’s a great deal\nof healthy, flavorful food comes out of this area, so it’s a satisfying thing\nto do. My part of the job is managing the policy. I serve on various committees\nat the state level as well, in order to learn what other things are happening.\nI have to hear what other working waterfront issues there are, because there\nare things that we may be impacting that I didn’t realize. You can’t be an\nexpert in everything, but I think it’s a responsibility to at least try to find\nout what else is going on. That was the biggest challenge, getting that sort of\ncommunication link with other resource users and recreational people. There’s a\nlot of bridges that don’t get made between different groups on the coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I\u2019ve noticed\nthat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That’s why I’m so supportive of the Frenchman Bay Partners<\/a>. I was one of the first people involved in that group, because it opens those doors. It’s not an advocacy group, it’s a communication hub. A lot of it is science-based, and it crosses those boundaries that otherwise are hard to reach across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          It puts people\nlike me and you in touch with each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Exactly. And me\nand the clamming people, and me and a kayak guide. Some industry, some riparian\nlandowners. Those sorts of barriers to communication seem to be quite strong,\nso this is a good way to build some connection. Because you’ve got to try, but\nif you just go and ask, they don’t necessarily want to tell you. It takes time.\nYou’ve got to build relationships with these groups and people, and show some\nintegrity over time. … You know, people tend to be rather suspicious of\nanything new. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Defensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah, and the\npeople from coastal communities in the state of Maine have had a very tough\nhistory. They’ve had a lot of people coming in and telling them that [there is]\na better way to do it, or they shouldn’t be doing it that way, and that has\nmade them very defensive and closed to those sorts of approaches, and I can\nquite understand why. \u2026 Environmentally, things are changing rapidly, and if we\ndon’t do something to learn and to try and adapt quickly enough, we’re going to\nbe in serious trouble. I think that the rate of change of environmental and\nsocial issues globally right now is leaving us behind. It’s scary that it’s\nlike that, we have to push forward with trying to find solutions, because\notherwise [this won\u2019t be here] for our grandchildren, if not our children\nalready. So it’s kind of a passion really. Can you tell?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I think that a\nlot of people are a little bit stuck between wanting to defend what they have\nand needing to change, and very suspicious of new people who are coming in,\nworried that there’s not enough to go around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Right, exactly.\nAnd they have to be so self-sufficient, the way that America works. You know,\nyou have to really look after yourself because the safety nets are not huge,\ncompared to many countries. Which puts a level of intensity, almost desperation\non \u2026 those solutions-focused conversations, when that is in the background.\nIt’s always the bear in the room, you know, it’s always there that \u2018they’re\ntrying to take my livelihood.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          \u2018What’s going\nto happen to me?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Exactly, and \u2018what’s\ngoing to happen to my family,\u2019 so I have a huge amount of respect and\nunderstanding for that as a motivator, and have a little bit of a thick skin. When\nwe’re looking for seed in different areas, we go to the shellfish committees in\nthat town. We’ve been to meetings before and they flat out point-blank refuse\nto speak to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Oh my gosh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        And then\nthey’ll say, \u2018Well you can come back next time,\u2019 so we go back a month later,\nwhich is the next meeting, and then they say, \u2018But we don’t have a quorum so\nwe’re not going to make a decision anyway.\u2019 And then you go back again and then\nthey go, \u2018Well okay, you’re obviously keen for doing this so we’ll talk with\nyou.\u2019 But you can’t be offended by that sort of thing because it’s almost\ninevitable … you know, we’re immigrants. I don’t expect to be treated like I\nwas a fifth-generation American, \u2026 but I think that we can add things and we\ncan give opportunities to people to adapt, because their old lifestyle choices\naren’t necessarily going to be enough for them either, so this can be another\nway you earn money living in a fishing community. The Island Institute is doing\nvarious smaller aquaculture projects out on the islands as another way to add\nto people’s income [so] they can still live on the islands. \u2026 It\u2019s a very\nsimple model, and it’s a very simple concept. You’re never going to be terribly\nrich and powerful, but it’s really a nice life. I’m always very careful to\nstress the fact that it is important to be profitable. You can’t do it well if\nyou don’t have the funds. It’s really important to not cut corners, and that means\ninvesting in things. You’ve got to make sure that you can pay your bank for\nborrowing that money for that piece of equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          You need to be\nable to pay your workers’ salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        You do, and you\nneed to be able to pay them proper wages. We have a small, dedicated team, and\nthey’re wonderful. But that costs money, so it’s important that you keep your\nbusiness model grounded in reality – you do have to sell these things, and you\ndo have to make money on it, for two reasons. The social cost, but also the\noperation costs of what it takes to do this properly, out on the water. It was\na big investment to build this building, so for us this is a bit of a new\nmodel, if you will. We’ve had to kind of readjust a little bit. We were in\nrented accommodations that really weren\u2019t up to scratch. It was too small for\nus and our production. We couldn’t keep it as clean and tidy as we wanted to – it\nwas just old and not really designed for a mussels-processing plant. \u2026 So we\nhad to build. I mean really there wasn’t another choice. We have people like\nAlex and Max who want to follow on and continue to grow [some] form of\naquaculture, whether it’s just the mussels or it’s other species, but it is\ngoing to take the long vision. This isn’t a quick boom-bust out of there kind\nof operation. This is a lifestyle thing that can work for generations, and it’s\nbeen proven to, but you\u2019ve got to have the commitment, and your ways and your\ngoals and ambitions are different if you do it this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So you’re\nbuilding a multi-generational family farm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yes, exactly.\nWell technically, Theo took over his farming from his grandfather, so he’s\nalready number five, and then Alex is now the sixth in total, but of course the\nsecond [generation] here. So yeah, it should be a generational thing. There’s\ntoo much to do in one lifetime, there really is! There’s so very much to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So are you\nguys still running the one that’s back in the Netherlands?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        His cousin runs\nthat one. We don’t have much to do with the day-to-day business. Theo was one\nof those proud waterfront village people in the Netherlands, so he can also\nunderstand the fishermen and the harvesters here, because \u2026 he’s got very deep\nroots from the village that he came from in the Netherlands. It gives you that\nlevel of understanding and that connection. And also if you’re out there\nworking in February, not even the diehard harvesters are out there. Theo’s out\nthere then. We harvest year round, unless it’s iced over completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          That is one\nway to earn respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah. Well, we\nalways say it’s too hot for four weeks in the year, and it’s too cold for four\nweeks in the year. The rest of it is okay. We can manage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So how long\ndoes it take for [mussels] to get to maturity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        About two\nyears.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Wow. That is a\nlong crop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        It is. And you\ndon’t just put them on the bottom and ignore them for two years. There’s some\nhusbandry that’s involved, including removing starfish or keeping the eider\nducks focused on wild product and not on farmed product. Redirecting their\nattention. They are predators that can do quite a lot of [damage] … They like\nfarmed mussels, their high meat content, lower shell ratio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So how do you\nkeep them away?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        We chase them\naround with a boat. Just to make it a little less comfortable on our farms. The\nthing is, there’s plenty of wild product they can eat. We’re not starving these\npoor birds. There’s plenty out there. It’s just that they like to do less\neffort for their food, and that’s normal. We all like that. Starfish are\nanother predator. They come up from the deep, and they smother mussels in the\nbed. They suffocate them and then eat them. We’ve got a really cool solution to\nthat. There’s a gentleman from Stonington, \u2026 his name is Dave Quimby, and he\nhas a little company called Ocean Resources. Anyway, he dives for things that\nare used for dissection in either research or education institutions, and he\ndives for starfish. It’s one of his big products. So when we have an\ninfestation of starfish we get him out there with his dive gear and he gets the\nproduct and we get them removed, so it’s a win for both of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          How deep are\nthe mussels? I’m having trouble picturing that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        That depends. To\nbe qualified as sub-tidal, that means it doesn’t dry out, even on spring low\ntide, so they’re always underwater. There’s 12 feet rise and fall here, \u2026 from\nsix feet to 20 feet is the area we’re kind of looking at. You can grow them in\ndeeper water. We just have more shallow beds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          It seems like\nthe deeper, the more difficult it would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Not\nparticularly. It’s more that there\u2019s more predation deeper, so the yield can be\nless. Starfish don’t like shallow waters because seagulls will dive through and\nget them, so they’re more prevalent in deeper water. So in the deep [areas],\nthe starfish can predate year-round , tide-round, all day, all night if they\nwant to, so they have more opportunity to feed on your product. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          So many\nvariables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        There’s so much\nto know, I don’t consider myself an expert on this at all. If you talk to Theo,\nhe has got many more interesting and nuanced opinions, because he’s out there\nall the time. I think it’s cool. He’s always muddy though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Mud doesn’t bother\nme. Schoodic had an intertidal stakeholders meeting, and they had some of the\nclammers, some of the wormers, people from the park, people from various state\nagencies. And me. Everyone went out and mucked around in the mudflats. It was\nawesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yes, it’s fun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Although when\nthey introduced me as an artist, I really got the stink-eye from the guys. By\nthe end I was just part of the scenery I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah. They have\nto work hard, Jenn. The wormers and the clammers, it’s a very hard way of\nearning money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I couldn’t do it.\nI would be in so much pain. [Ed. Note:\nfrom the constant stooping and bending.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah, a lot of\nthem are, and there’s a lot of opioid problems, because of the pain. But it\ncomes really from the grueling life … People tend to think, \u2018oh drug addicts,\u2019\nbut why are they a drug addict? Because it’s been prescribed to them for\nchronic, awful pain from physical labor. It does give me pause when old\nattitudes towards people who have those problems are outdated now. We know more\nabout it. We know that it’s not necessarily a choice that they made, it kind of\nhappened to them. And that’s not [true] for everybody, of course it’s not. But\nwe had our own … We’ve had a learning curve with employees who’ve had all of\nthese issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        We are\nemploying the boat crew and also the picking crew here. It’s unskilled labor.\nIt’s not rocket science, they don’t need any qualifications to do it, so the\nsorts of people [who apply] are the ones who can no longer do those other jobs.\nThey bring all these issues with them, so I’ve felt a bit like an outreach for\nthe longest time. I mean I can’t do it like an agency would. I just can’t.\nThat’s not what we’re here for, and I’m not qualified to do it. But it broke my\nheart a lot of the time. You hear their stories and you see their lives, and\nthey’re brutally hard. And they seem pretty happy living that way, some of them.\nYou have to kind of respect that this is what they’re used to, this is the life\nthey have, and they’re not going to want to change it necessarily, because even\na horrible life is what you know, and change is hard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          It’s\nchallenging. I mean, I come from away, and there’s so much that I just don’t\nknow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        And those\nlevels of society don’t mix. There are like strata that don’t mix at all. And\nI’ve got middle class friends, and people from the lab, and they have\nabsolutely no idea of the people that Kathy and I are working with some of the\ntime. Not now, as I said we have a different team now, but when we were over in\nHancock, it was tough. We’ve been called at two in the morning to bail people\nout after OUIs. It teaches compassion, but it also teaches that I am literally\nunqualified and unable to make a difference in these things. Somehow, we have\nto do that collectively as society. On an individual level, I am not able to do\nvery much. A little bit of easing the pain where I can, but there\u2019s very little\nI can do to make a significant difference in people’s lives. It’s sad because\nwe have regular work year around. But if [people] can’t get to work, in the end\nwhat can you do? I’ve kept jobs open for them when they’ve been in jail for 10\ndays or whatever and come back again. But it doesn’t work in the long term. It\njust doesn’t work out. They end up fading out. They just disappear and don’t\nshow up, and that’s it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          That’s so sad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yes, it is. It\nis sad. I think it’s such a waste of very useful, valuable people. They have\nvalue and they don’t even really recognize that themselves anymore, I don’t\nthink. They’re not particularly sad. They’re so accepting of their difficult\nlives. You think \u2018it’s possible to get out of this.\u2019 It is, but not if you’ve\nnever been shown a way or nobody else in your family’s ever got out of it. You’re\nsort of stuck. \u2026 There are really sad stories that you hear. This girl, I’ve\nseen her in tears because she’s had to say goodbye to her children when she\ngoes to jail again. She’s heartbroken, but her mother kicked her out on the\nstreet at the age of 12, how is she going to ever make those other choices?\nShe’s desperate for love and affection and some stability. Yet, she is now\ntrapped in the drug world and can never really get away from it because now her\nbody is taken over by the drug. But underneath it, there’s still that person\nunder there. We tried very hard to help her, but it was very sad in the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          It must be\nhard balancing the emotional part with what\u2019s best for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        I’m a caring\nperson. I have a masters degree in diagnostic imaging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Seriously?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        So, I’m a\nhospital people-person, right? It’s totally irrelevant to what I’m doing now. But\nthe people and the empathy and the analytical side of it and seeing where\nproblems are coming from and standing in other people’s shoes, I’m really good\nat that. But sometimes I have to make the decisions, which are hard, from the\nperspective that it’s better for the company as a whole. The company is …\nIt’s like a coral reef. All sorts of things feed from it. It’s not just one [person.]\nWe consider ourselves stewards of the company rather than owners of the\ncompany. I have payroll. I have responsibilities to people. I have\nresponsibilities to banks. I have responsibility to pay my taxes. I have all\nthese other responsibilities and I have to make the right choices for those as\nwell. So, it’s not just the immediate person that I would like to be able to\nhelp. For me, the motivation has been working this company to a point of\nstrength so it can carry on supporting a lifestyle for the boys and their\nfamilies. Money doesn’t motivate me very much because I don’t really care about\nit that much, but working hard and making those difficult choices because it’s\nbest for the children or the people who work with us. I can do that because\nthat’s using the empathy that I have for them already. So, that helps to make\nthose more difficult decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Anybody who\nhas a payroll has a community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        You do. And\nthey’re good people, and you see that they’re so wonderful. Even when things\nare hard, they still come in because they don’t want to let each other down, so\nthat they\u2019re not one [person] short. We are very blessed right now, but it’s been\na long haul to get to this. We’ve had to [change] the interview and employment\nprocess … The turnover is really heartbreaking. It demoralizes your good\npeople, too.  \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        If you’re a\nfamily business, you do a lot of the work. My husband is the boat person, and\ndoes all the farming. Alex does all the processing, and the engineering, and\nthe repairs, and the technical stuff. He’s really good at all of that, and I\nrun the business sales, distribution, business office, and policy stuff. So, we\ncan swap around a little bit, but mainly we haven’t taken a holiday together in\n12 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Oh my God.\nIt’s time for a vacation!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah, we don’t\nhave time. It can’t run without us. One of us can go at a time. If I go to\nvisit my parents, I go to England for three days, and then I’m back. You can’t\nmiss your shipments. When the boys get older and we have slightly different\nsituations, then we’ll maybe be able to do that. But I don’t really mind. I\nreally don’t. Sometimes I get the afternoon off. It’s not like we\u2019re working 16\nhours a day anymore. We were working 12 to 16 hours, 6 days a week for years.\nThe new building has [meant] at least Theo and I get a weekend together now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          How did the\nbuilding change that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Because we can\ndo a lot of the processing here. To get the mussel to market is a two-day job because\nit’s in a sandy environment on the seabed. They need to be in clean flowing\nwater for 12 hours to get rid of any sand that they may have ingested during\nthe harvest process. That [used to be] done on the boat in containers with pumps.\n\u2026 In order to do that, Theo would harvest one afternoon. They would purge\novernight on the boat. He would be back out at two or three in the morning.\nHe’d do the first stage of the processing. [Then] they would need to be graded,\nde-bearded, washed, and then put in containers to come to the final stage of\nthe final packing and bagging up and shipping. So the boat was busy for two\ndays for one shipment, but now they harvest them in the afternoon, they bring\nthem to the plant because we have a saltwater intake here. We stack them here\novernight, which frees up the boat time. Instead of having to work six days for\nour market mussels, Theo has to work three days for our market mussels, leaving\ntwo to three days, depending on what’s going on, for the rest of the farm work,\nwhich is seeding-in, and monitoring, and husbandry, and all this stuff that\nneeds to happen. So now he’s caught up with maintenance. He’s caught up with a\nlot of the monitoring programs, and things that he wanted to get going in\nevaluation. So now he’s able to take Saturdays off when work allows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
The Hollander & Dek\u00f6ning boat, “Stewardship.” Photo from the company website.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          That’s great!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        So we actually\nfeel that we are terribly well spoiled now because we have our own Saturday and\nSunday very often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          I guess it’s\nall what you’re used to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        We’ve got a lot\nto be grateful for. We had to work hard, but there’s lots of people that have\nto work hard. It’s worthwhile work. You’re farming food for people. We’re not petrochemicals.\n\u2026 For me, it seems just a worthwhile thing to be doing. I enjoy it, I suppose.\nThat’s the bottom line. \u2026 Farming is very vulnerable to environmental change of\ncourse. But you can’t sit there and worry about that for too long. You just do\nwhat you can, and the best you can at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Are the\nmussels responding to the warming water at all?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        They’re rather\ntolerant of it. The water\u2019s still pretty cold. It’s warmer than it has been,\nbut where we came from, the waters are way warmer and the mussels still grow. They\nwon’t grow as well when it’s too warm. That doesn’t mean to say that they’ll\ndie. They just may not grow as fast. That may have some impact on how you do\nthings. You have to adapt perhaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          That’s good to\nknow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Yeah, but you\ncan’t lock this stuff in, Jenn. If I had to worry about all of those things all\nthe time, I\u2019d be too terrified to do anything. You have to have a little bit of\nfaith that you’ll find solutions as you come across your challenges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Do you have\nenough time to show me some of the process?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Sure, yeah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        This is the\nwater pump coming in from the ocean. That’s a filter to make sure we don’t get\ntoo much kelp and things like that coming in. That could block everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        These are the\npurging heads. They’re just shower units.  Alex built all of this. He bought a couple of\npieces of equipment, but all the hoppers and belts, he fabricated himself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do you ever think to yourself, “I gave birth to this?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        I look at him\nand think, \u201cAnd he had such trouble tying his shoelaces.\u201d And he’s a father,\nJenn. Can you believe it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          [laughs] <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        [The mussels]\nstack up under here three or four high, and the water goes through them, and\nthen up and over, and through the next one, up and over. Any sand gets spat out\nduring the process because they’re actually feeding once they\u2019re there. So\nthey’re perfectly happy. … Once we come in to do the processing in the\nmorning, we turn that water switch off. And then this hopper is also full of\nseawater. So they never fall on anything hard. They fall into water all the\ntime. Then, they go up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sets of machines here … The mussels come in clumps with their beards. This separates them out there. It rotates slowly and breaks them into individual mussels without damaging the mussels, ideally. Then this one will let any small grits out. … Everything is covered in seawater throughout this whole process, it’s just a big wet mess in here. Then there’s a table grader, a debearding machine and then this little darling is an optical sorter. It photographs every single mussel, anything that goes through it. You program it using Windows XP. The software [is what specializes it] for mussels. They also use them for blueberries and carrots and skittles. They vibrate so they’re nice and evenly spread. Then, they literally image every single thing. They will select a reject and they\u2019ll pop it out. It keeps all the data so you can look at what it’s rejecting, and you can adjust things. Alex has got programs in here for the different farms. As I said, they have different characteristics. They need a different program to pick them accurately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/
Image by Matthew Harrington via NPR<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

[Ed.note: “Debearding” is the process of removing the mussel ‘beards,’ another name for the <\/em>byssal threads<\/em><\/a> that mussels use to anchor themselves to hard surfaces. The process is also referred to as ‘debyssing.’<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Oh, of course.\nSlightly different colors and shapes. Wow. That’s really sophisticated stuff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If it meets the criteria of a good mussel, they’ll shoot across into these salt water filled hoppers. Actually, we run it through twice. Basically, it goes through there and then to the inspection belt. If it’s a reject, it’ll be shot down with some air jets. This is pretty much how it will come into the bag:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These, they didn’t go through the machine. The [beards] would’ve been removed in the debyssing machine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        Say that had\ngone through the optical sorter and this would go through, this would be\nrejected. It gets shot out. There are 36 jets. Maybe 60. It sounds like\ngunshots. It’s a very clever system. This is what’s brought us up to the level\nof world-class processing … They have these in the Netherlands. This is not\nnew, it’s just new for here. But I think there\u2019s one company in Prince Edward\nIsland that uses them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is a slurry ice maker. You know slush puppies that you buy at the convenience store? \u2026 This uses seawater and it makes a slurry ice out of seawater. \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Oh, cool!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:        When we’re\nshipping mussels, [we use] seawater rather than freshwater ice. Which means they\nkeep their flavor better. Also, it goes in between each mussel in the bag, so\nthat every mussel has a layer of ice all the way around it. This [machine] was\nvery expensive. It has put us in the marketplace because we have a really high\nquality product going out there now. We didn’t design it. They use them on\nboats, offshore fishing. \u2026 This is the slurry ice – when it goes in, it’s\nliquid. The water drains out and leaves this ice behind. It’s at 27 degrees, a\nlittle colder than normal ice. They’re tiny little spheres. It gets to be quite\nhard. \u2026 This is the bagging machine. At the end of the process, the mussels\ncome into this hopper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Jenn:          Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fiona:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This hopper has seawater in it. This is the seawater inlet that we set to a certain level. There’s a slow moving conveyor. You see it’s just running? It’s bringing out mussels gently and steadily the whole time. Then, we have three people standing on these benches here. Every mussel goes past three people as a final check. The machine doesn’t get everything, but this [process] does. This finishes it. These can be set at different rates to make sure that if they’re trickier to pick, then they’ll slow it down. If it goes quick, then they can make it faster. Then, this is the final bit. That machine weighs [out] whatever weights we program in. So for example our bags go in at 10 pounds, and we put some extra in. Then, they’re put on this table with tags, so they’ll have the proper labeling. This yellow pipe is where they pipe the ice in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n