So the FarmBoat floating market involves a 90-year-old steamboat and is modeled after the boat-powered system of commerce people around here relied on from the mid-1800s to the 1930s. Are there things from that era you wish you could supply but are unavailable, like penny-farthing bicycles or opium?

Yes—Bainbridge and Vashon were major berry producers back then, but produce next to nothing now. There were also a lot of grain products coming out of Skagit Valley. Cream of Wheat used to be made in Seattle.

Our nonexistent summer has yielded some tomatoes that look like clinically depressed grapes. Have any vegetables benefited from this weather?

[Laughs] No. Well, probably mushrooms. Everything's behind. Some local farmers have hothouses, though. Small farms are more versatile and able to adapt to the environment and local demand.

Your website states that FarmBoat is "turning back the clock." Does this refer exclusively to historic boats and traditional means of food production, or should patrons be prepared for time-travel hazards like measles and accidentally preventing their own births?

[Laughs] We're not sticklers about time travel. We just want to bring back the positive essence of a past era... I mean, you wouldn't really want to go back to 1917.