seaweed...

Last week i had the opportunity to go to a talk with 'the seaweed lady', Diane Bernard. Diane runs a company called SeaFlora, where she hand harvests seaweed along the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, and uses it to make high end organic skincare products that are used in spas around the world. Normally she does talks at the beach, right in the thick of it, but low tide was at 6am and we had a bit shorter time for it too. I was disappointed, but oh well - learning about these plants was fascinating nonetheless. She brought a big pile of seaweeds that she had harvested earlier that morning and passed them out so we could touch and play. There is such variety along this coast, from the massive bull kelp, the fastest growing organism in the world, to thin clumps of sea lettuce. You can click on the images for a bit more info, although I can't remember the names of all of them. I need to get a good reference book. Most of them are edible, and they are full of minerals that can improve your health whether you eat them or put them directly on your skin.

I was inspired to try and add more seaweeds to my diet, and started this evening when I picked some sea lettuce on my walk. I added it to leftover spot prawns (thanks Mom!) tossed with some mushrooms and pasta. Yum.

We're in our new house, but there's lots of work to do yet. AK has gone out for his last guiding trip of the year (lucky him - back to where the humpbacks are still hanging out) so I'm tackling the boxes by myself so far. This house definitely has different dimensions from the old one, and furniture arrangement is going to take some creativity. But we'll make it work. Now if I could just find my stitching...