Over the summer we have had three visitors staying with us here in Kahli Cove from a web based work exchange program. They help with the day to day chores of sorting, cleaning, packing and delivering oysters to customers... in return for this we are sharing our local perspective on living on the waters of Wild Alaska. As hosts we posted our info along with some pictures from around the farmstead..... and throw in a Linn's great cooking and a place to bunk down in our guest cabin.
After screening several hits on our host page we excepted Lee's offer to join our team. He is a Hoosier from Indiana and raised on a farm so we knew he was used to hard work and with his love of hunting and fishing was a great fit for us.
For the first few days after Lee arrived....Jerry took him around the area showing him to our way of life.....which included fishing, setting shrimp pots, setting skate lines and did I say fishing and then they went fishing. Lee didn't seem to mind fishing and he was always up early and in the boat at the first glimmer of daylight .....like Jerry always said ...You can't fish all day if you don't get started in the morning.......So the routine was .....even after the work part of the equation came into play was to go out fishing first thing in the morning and then come back to work for a while and then back to fishing.....after all you got to fish while the fish are in....don't ya know.
Now in the mean time we are still getting hits on the host site and then came Lucas.....
.....Lucas was from Switzerland...yup the little country with all the banks and the little pocket knives that have all kinds of gadgets on them.. oh and they make Koo Koo clocks and lots of cheese too....
Lucas was great fun. He took to fishing and was soon fighting Brick the Karelian Bear dog for the third seat in the boat each morning. He was after as he called them, "the Sal i man". He also enjoyed cooking and was a great help around the house. He took over running the shrimp pot lines and loved killing/cooking crab.
Fellow European Alaster soon arrived and they had a bit of a rivalry going at first. After all, if a Swiss could swim in Alaskan waters, so could an Englishman. They grew to work and play well together. After all, they were sharing a very small float!
Alaster's parents are Scouters back in Kent so Larry had a lot in common with him and they spent long evenings talking and sharing pictures. He took to fishing with a vengeance and more than once prepared a "proper English fish and chips".
Alaster was game for everything. On a dare, he sorted out the largest of our large, a real Lollygagger and shot it down raw...
all 10 inches of it.
Now that's a lolly Gagger.
Over the summer we all worked and we played. Sometimes the work was fun
and sometimes the play was work. Lucas and now soon Al returned home to start school terms. Lee actually took a paying job locally and moved on but in Alaska permanently. Hopefully we all learned from each other and the experiences.
Meanwhile, the web site just keeps on getting hits. We tell people we only farm in the season, that fall is cold, windy, stormy, and wet. That the winters are long, dark, and dreary. And they just kept applying.
So, Jerry will have two weeks of 'lone time then he has two Maltese guys coming for a month and a lobster fisherman from Maine for the entire winter.
As for Larry & Linn, they learned from the Guest Workers for sure. They set up their own listing for a mature, experienced couple available for light work for the winter and have taken a job house sitting on the big island of Hawaii - Aloha!
