As the search for lobstering jobs has continued, I have had a number of leads. So far:
1. I'm supposed to call a guy named "Skip" that might have some work for me.
2. I've written to the the great Aunt of a friend of mine. Said great-Aunt owns a chowder house. I'm hoping that she can give me some advice, although I have yet to hear from her.
3. An older woman, a guest here, placed a few calls for me to her "grandson-in-law" who works as a lobsterman. I got the call yesterday. He "no longer needs anyone in his boat."
In light of the string of bad luck with the lobster thing, I am beginning to entertain other thoughts, including Potato Picking. I call it "picking", but apparently it is a job that entails more "gathering" after the potatoes have been dug up with a machine.
While picking potatoes would sort of ruin the romance of the lobstering industry, it may in fact, be a better option. My contact with "Skip" has described lobstering to me as "cold, hard, and smelly" and "certainly not romantic at all." He's probably right, but I wonder if that's something that I should figure out on my own.
More as things unfold.
For some info on lobstering and Maine lobsters, check out the blog tasty planet, entry on August 21st. (http://tastyplanet.blogspot.com)
ReplyDeleteYou could also check out these sites, and get in contact with the folks listed there.
http://www.gomlf.org/whoweare.htm
http://www.mainelobstermen.org/about.asp?page=3
Good luck!
sorry- wrong link above. I meant http://tastyplanettv.blogspot.com)
ReplyDeletesalut bond moi driss d e maroc errachidia apelle moi sile te plais
ReplyDeleteYes, lobstering is hard, cold, and smelly -- but really, there's no reason why you shouldn't have a chance to figure that out on your own. The lobster season slows a lot after summer, though.
ReplyDeleteLikewise, potato picking is going on as we speak -- all the New Brunswick (Canada) schoolkids have been let out of school for a few weeks to help on family farms picking potatoes, which means Aroostook County's kids aren't far behind.
Potato picking is also hard and cold work (at least first thing in the morning), very dirty, and smelly when you stick your glove into a rotten potato's core instead of that nice firm non-rotten one you were hoping for.
Average consensus seems to be that most folks that aren't hardcore will pick up to 20 barrels of potatoes on a good day, while the most efficient could pull in anywhere from 60 to 100 barrels a day.
Back when my husband was picking as a teenager in the late 1980s, early 1990s, he was getting about 75 cents per barrel, maybe a little more, but certainly not as much as a dollar each. That's about $20-$25 a day for backbreaking labor.
But there's still a certain sense of nostalgia for those days when you got up in the dark morning to catch your ride to the potato fields at 5:00am, and the smell of dirt and plants and sweat.