“We loved the idea of hosting a thanksgiving and providing everything from our land. So we were playing around on memorial day and thought it would be fun to bring our hog with salt that came from Bulls Bay. We got about three and a half ounces per gallon, so we had a bunch of […]
Bulls Bay Saltworks
“We loved the idea of hosting a thanksgiving and providing everything from our land. So we were playing around on memorial day and thought it would be fun to bring our hog with salt that came from Bulls Bay. We got about three and a half ounces per gallon, so we had a bunch of salt. I put some of it on the smoker as I was smoking the hog and people were loving it. A couple weeks later we thought ‘well maybe we can make salt for a living. How hard can it be?’ Afterall it’s just basic chemistry.” — Rustin Gooden.
Rustin and Teresa Gooden are South Carolina’s humble salt harvesters. They live on an acre of land in McClellanville, plotted with vegetables and a greenhouse with their three dogs, two cats, three pigs and 19 chickens.
Every day the two rise before the sun with a thermos of coffee and skim across the waters to work their friend’s clamming beds. They return to their acre by noon, clams in hand and covered in plough mud, ready to monitor the salt trays.
…Dream life.
Photography by Olivia Rae James, words by Blake Suarez via Freunde von Freunden
