My 30th Year

I don't like to celebrate my birthday on the actual day (something about impossibly high expectations that only meet with disappointment). I generally have more fun when the celebration is spread out. This year, I made a conscious effort to actively celebrate it ALL YEAR. One only lives her 30th year once, right? Here's how I celebrated my birthday this year:

• It started in February with a semi-spontaneous trip to see an older (*wink*) friend in California. We had made plans to visit them almost as soon as we knew they were really leaving, but it takes guts to actually pick a date and buy a ticket and drop in on someone you haven't seen in a year. I'm counting it :)
• I took a class on Entrepreneurial Farming. Veeeeery insightful.
  
• Purchased my own copies of a few books I have loved and lusted after for some time: Story People by Brian Andreas, Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land Than You Can Imagine by John Jeavons. One of these is not like the others :)
  
• That amazing dinner with Heidi at Prairie Fruits Farm *sigh*
• My friend Michelle surprised me with a garden-themed birthday cake at Orpheum Museum. How did she know I like to garden? LOL
• My friend Denise constructed a raised bed for my raspberry bushes AND gave me a nifty square and indoor/outdoor extension cord that has come in handy for numerous projects since then.

Today was my literal b-day and it was just about perfect. Instead of trying to make it "the perfect day", I ended up with a great regular day that I actually paid attention to. I found myself looking at the day's activities as a cross-section of my life. It was AWESOME! Here's what happened:

• Alice was playing with a folding chair when she tripped and fell on it in just such a way that it collapsed on her finger with her on top of the chair. It looked awful, but no broken skin. Big, puffy bruises clustered all around the tip of her finger. She asked for a band-aid, gagged down some pain killer, and snuggled with me on the snuggle chair for half an hour. We dozed a bit, which was nice. I realized that I really do enjoy being a mom. I am where I want to be.
• We were beginning to get ready to meet Kristin, Will, and Kayla for a play date when my friend JulieAnn called to invite us to the park. I hopped out of the shower and my friend Rachel called to wish me a happy birthday. I literally hung up with her (pulling out of my driveway with the cordless phone in my hand, not a cell phone) when my friend Jessica called about canning peaches with her this weekend. I had to turn around and drive home to get better reception :) This flurry of phone calls from friends NEVER happens. I don't consider myself a popular person and most of these people don't call me on a regular basis. The fact that it happened today, when at least half of them were not conscious of it being my birthday, helped me appreciate the good friends that I do have. I sobbed when Michelle left yesterday. It sounds cheesy, I know, but I really felt rich with friends today. Near and far. A good feeling. Better than any number of people at a surprise party.
• My time with Kristin, Will, and Kayla was sweet, too. Kristin made me my favorite pie (pumpkin!) with homemade crust and everything. Wow! Then we spent the morning at the Winfield pool and toy room until the kids got too tired to play together any more. It's a shame when the kids get enough before the parents do. I realized today that it's good to have family nearby. I have enjoyed getting to know the Evanses better and seeing Alice come to love her cousins. These are friendships that will persist a lifetime, no matter what.
  
• Alice and I stopped at KFC/A&W for a special lunch treat. This activity was hard to find any significance in. I don't think I'll try.
• Quiet time at home...I relaxed on the couch while Alice played naked in her room again. She is a neat little personality to have in our home. I am a mother.
• The Jarvies came over for a little play date. We picked the rest of the green beans in my garden. Actually, Marianne did most of the picking (9.5 months pregnant and all) while I wrestled with an exhausted Alice. I shared some beans and portions of my CSA produce with her, which reminded me how much I love to share things I love with people I love. Alice was fighting every vegetable gift I gave, wanting to hoard the rest for herself. I peeled her a medium cucumber and she ate it whole. Then she ate a raw patty pan squash just because I was giving them away so freely. Then she ate a baby carrot from our garden. It balanced well with the french fries, Teddy Grahams, and lemonade she ate for lunch :D
  
• Alice fell asleep in the car while I ran an errand about 6pm. I toyed with idea of waking her up and wrestling with her sour mood for another hour until bedtime, but then I got smart. I put her straight to bed. She barely stirred. Heck, if she wakes up early tomorrow, Bobby will be around. This experience revealed how I like to make decisions for other people sometimes (mwah ha ha haaaa).
  

Technically, my 30th year ends this week, but I've extended it to the whole 2009 calendar year. It took me some time to build up the courage to actually start doing these things. So! Here's what's in store for the rest of this year's celebrations:

• "Introduction to Genealogy" course through Parkland College Continuing Education
• "Building Your Home Green" course...a bit of a fancy of mine
• A more mature wardrobe (i.e. shirts with buttons or some sort of shape to them, maybe a pair of Sunday shoes that will actually fit)
• TWO operas with my opera buddy, Julia: The Merry Widow and Tosca
  

CSA Share---August 12th

Big, big haul today. Enough to freeze for later and attempt making pickles.

6 ears sweet corn
9 summer squash
2 large cucumbers
4 pounds green beans
1 large bell pepper
1 large sweet and spicy pepper
1 small bunch red leaf lettuce
1 large bunch green leaf lettuce
1 huge Italian eggplant
1 medium bunch of fresh dill

Alice snarfed one ear of corn on our way to the restaurant for dinner, then she started rooting around in the bag for more. She discovered the corn silk and asked me what it was. When I told her it was "corn silk" she promptly shoved it in her mouth and almost gagged herself into vomiting. When I opened her door to get her out at the restaurant, there was corn milk dried all over her face and hands, and she was covered head-to-toe in corn silk. She handed me the fistful of soggy corn silk that almost made her barf and stated, "My no yike it."

Squash may get frozen for minestrone in the winter. The cukes and dill will suffer my first attempt at making homemade pickles. Peppers and eggplant will definitely be chopped and frozen for fajitas and/or Indian curry later this year.

Girls Night Out

Alice treated me to a surprise "girls night out" this evening. After we picked up an enormous load of produce from our CSA (to be posted next), she directed me to Noodles and Co. where I cashed in my "Free Birthday Meal" coupon for a surprisingly tasty Bangkok Curry with beef. Alice opted for the mushroom stroganoff. She pointed out all the most exciting features of the restaurant: lighting, exposed pipes on the ceiling painted burnt sienna, table condiments ("Spicy! No spicy."), the soda machine, plastic lids and straws, and the restrooms. She almost ate her entire meal, which surprised me to no end.

We came home, mixed up a batch of brownies (partly to rid the kitchen of that rotting produce smell I have generated with all my silly compost scraps...ugh), and, throwing caution to the wind, we licked the bowl clean. Coated in chocolate ("cah-coh-yit"), it was obviously bath time for Alice. I put my feet in and she washed them over and over again, which is *almost* like a pedicure, right? ;)

The brownies were done by the time she got out of the tub. We played and talked again over chocolate and milk. It was there that she shared her innermost feelings, "C is for cookie. D is for Daddy. B is for baby. A is for A-yiss. Eth is for 'nake."

She says my name with a lisping "s" like "Thoo-then", but she completely drops the "s" sound from the word "snake", which makes it a very interesting word to represent that letter's sound.

Toothbrush, snuggle, story, and a couple songs later, she went to bed. Now I'm off to do a little more family history research. I had a recent breakthrough with one of my most interesting mysteries so I'm itching to move ahead again. Woo hoo!

CSA Share---July 22nd and July 29th

My sister was in town until recently, so I will blame her for my late CSA share posting :)

July 22nd
1 medium red cabbage
1 small eggplant
5 small summer squash
2 broccoli / cauliflower
1 large romaine lettuce
9 tomatoes (3 slicers, and 6 others)
1 full size cucumber,
3 mini sweet corn ears

I would have made moussaka, but Heidi declared baba ganoush would be a much better use for the eggplant. She was right! Think of a smokey hummus with the bright flavor of fresh parsley.

The summer squash, broccoli, and cauliflower were lightly sauteed with mushrooms and broccoli in butter, fresh basil, fresh parsley, and a hint of pesto. I was inspired to try this technique after sampling an amazing dinner 'on the farm.' More details to come.

The romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and cukes were chopped and thrown into a taco salad. Heidi and I agree that taco salad is best served with ranch dressing...handmade, if you've got it :)

The sweet corn ears were eaten raw. Very sweet. They said we would get larger corn later.

I'm saving the red cabbage for their recommended "freezer slaw" recipe...I'm curious enough to try it at least once.


July 29th
10 summer squash
2 brocccoli / cauliflower
1 freakishly huge bunch of green onions
1 large cucumber
2 skinny Asian eggplants
12 medium tomatoes
2 cubanella peppers
1.5 pounds of green beans

I'm sharing a few tomatoes and summer squash with a friend, then baking most of the rest in layers with swiss cheese (Heidi tells me it's a grand combination). These farmers pick their summer squash very small. I haven't received one yet that is longer than my hand. They are tender and don't have a strong squashy flavor, which means I'm happy to eat more for a longer period of time.

Cucumber and tomatoes were also used in our haystacks tonight. It's a dish I crave in the summer when you have all those fresh garden flavors and textures at once. There's just something about crunchy, tart, and fragrant veggies in the middle of a pile of saucy rice that hits the spot.

Not enough eggplant to roast (these are far too long and skinny to "scoop" anything out) for baba ganoush, not ready for more Indian curry just yet, so I think I'll take a stab at ratatouille. The CSA gave us a cookbook in the beginning of the season and their recipe for ratatouille appeals to me.

Green beans, broccoli, and cauliflower will probably be eaten lightly steamed and salted. I generally like those veggies served simply.

CSA Share---July 15th and Produce Stand

Will and Alice both came along to pick up our CSA share this week. They were both so excited that they were fighting about whose CSA it really was..."Awice's CSA!" "No, it's not your CSA." "Awice's CSA!!" "Hey guys, it's called Prairieland CSA." *silence*

Great fun this week!

1 large bunch of beets with tops
1 large Napa cabbage
3 small summer squash
2 small broccoli
2 small cauliflower
1 medium head red romaine lettuce
1 medium eggplant
1 pickle-sized cucumber
1 large tomato

The cuke and the tomato were consumed within seconds of arriving home. Will and Alice would have eaten them at the CSA pick-up site if I hadn't been fast enough.

The beets will be pickled with spices as soon as I manage to get to the store for whole mustard seed, whole cloves, cinnamon sticks, and apple cider vinegar. I have ALL my garden beets and previous CSA beets waiting in the fridge for those items to arrive.

Napa cabbage went straight into that delicious Asian-themed coleslaw again that I took to a potluck birthday party. I was delighted to see it wasn't all eaten, then crushed when I dropped the bowl and spilled it all over the floor :( Is it too much to hope for ONE more Napa cabbage this growing season?

Squash and broccoli are on hold for now.

I might be able to enjoy a salad again this week...we'll see.

The cauliflower and eggplant went into a brilliant Indian-themed curry that I found through the America's Test Kitchen website and modified slightly to include the veggies I had on-hand. By far, it's the best way I've ever had eggplant. Alice ate half a can of chickpeas and a quarter cup of coconut milk while she was "helping" me prepare dinner.

Alice and I stopped at a produce stand this morning, too. It's the only one in town, as far as I can tell, and it's very close to where many of our friends live, so I pass it a couple times a week. We picked up 3# of fresh green beans, a little seedless watermelon, and 1.5# of ugly tomatoes. Another customer of the stand rolled her eyes at Alice's fatigue-induced fit regarding the "wrong" watermelon going into our car. I still can't decide which bothered me more: Alice's tantrum or the woman's reaction :)

CSA Share---July 8th

Woo hoo! I am so pleased with this CSA that I may never leave it :) If all the exclamation points below don't make it obvious, you should know I skipped with joy bringing the following home:

1 head of green cabbage the size of a croquet ball (perfect size!)
1 medium bunch of curly leaf kale (one of my favorite veggies!)
1 small bunch of green onions
3 yellow squash, about the length of my hand but skinny
5 small heads of broccoli (Woo hoo!!!)
1 small head of cauliflower
1 small head green leaf lettuce (ugh, ready for the lettuce to stop)
2 pickle-sized cucumbers
2 Alice hands full of rocks

We get rocks every week, actually. Alice collects them from the gravel driveway at the pick-up location. I suspect those rocks are the only reason Alice chooses to come with me.

The cabbage will keep for several weeks in the fridge. I'm hoping for a cold snap soon that will warrant soup, or I might go a little wild and stuff some cabbage leaves. There's always slaw, of course.

Kale, kale, kale. How I love thee! Flavorful, but not overpowering. Remains firm when cooked, but not tough. Kale is the best cooked leafy green I know! It's another one of those great soup veggies, but we're not exactly in soupy weather. I like it sauteed with garlic and a little oil, then eaten with fingers. Some veggies just taste better when you skip the fork. Really.

We have enough broccoli this week to freeze some of it. Nothing compares to the freshly-steamed flavor, but it's nice to have a pound or two in the freezer for those last-minute veggie additions to meals.

Cauliflower will go into a curry. Oh yes.

Cukes, lettuce, squash, and green onions are ideal for leafy green salads. Now if I could only bear eating one more leafy green salad!

CSA Share---June 24th and July 1st

I have been remiss in my CSA reporting. I'll admit I've been a little overwhelmed with their offerings. It's embarrassing not to know what to do with these things I've had romantic dreams of growing some day...like turnips.

June 24th

1 large bunch of HUGE green onions (wow!)
1 large bunch of turnips with greens
1 medium bunch of beets with greens
1 medium kohlrabi
1 large bunch radishes
1 small head green leaf lettuce
1 small bag of HUGE snow peas
3 small bunches of broccoli...like 3 serving sizes
1 pickle-sized cucumber (Alice's choice, again)

The green onions are currently wilting in my fridge until I get around to freezing them. Turnips are waiting, too, for some cruciferous miracle that changes their odd taste into something palatable. The beets were shredded raw with last weeks beets into a delicious beet salad that Alice fought me for. Funny thing about beets...they put a red tint into your urine and excrement. Alice thought she was bleeding the next day. The beet greens were just composted because they are MUCH more acidic than spinach and I don't like how that messes with my teeth. Kohlrabi was sliced thin and eaten with salad from the PREVIOUS week's lettuce haul. Not bad. Radishes were left in the box at the pick-up site. The green leaf lettuce is half frozen in my fridge right now. The snow peas were eaten fresh straight from the bag. The broccoli remained untouched in the fridge until we could gather more.

Alice used to like frozen peas. Now, the only peas she eats are the fresh garden ones you peel from their shell. The joy of homegrown produce is a blessing AND a curse. I think I'll try to squeeze another crop of peas out of my garden before winter hits :)


July 1st (Happy Birthday Erin!)

1 beautiful head of Napa cabbage
1 huge bunch of green onions
1 small sack of snow peas
3 little bunches of broccoli
3 teeny yellow squash (Alice picked these over the baby cukes with a squeal of delight...let's hope she eats them as gleefully)
1 kohlrabi
1 turnip (no greens)
1 head red leaf lettuce
1 sprig of basil (heavenly scent!)

Napa cabbage! That thin and crisp-leaved veggie used in Chinese food. It's beautiful AND delicious raw or cooked. I'm fancying a little slaw. We left the kohlrabi and turnip in the box this week. I just don't feel like experimenting with them right now.

Fresh basil makes me think of Italian food and Thai food. If my week isn't too crazy, I think I'll go the Thai route.

CSA Share---June 17th

1 large head of lettuce

1 large bunch of green onions

1 kohlrabi with greens

1 large bunch of beets with greens

Our choice between: pickle-sized cuke, small eggplant, or teeny zucchini

Alice chose the cuke, much to Bobby's delight. We'll chop and freeze the green onions for cooking in soups later. Kohlrabi can be eaten raw and these greens are still tender enough to eat. I like beets a few ways, most of them pickled in some form. I may try a raw beet salad, but only if my sister sends me the recipe AGAIN. Forgive me, Heidi.

CSA Share June 10th

1 huge head of green leaf lettuce
1 huge head of red leaf letttuce
1 small bag of baby salad mix and Asian greens
1 pickle-sized cucumber
1 medium bunch of radishes (I opted out again)
1 large bunch of green onions

We're STILL eating through the red leaf lettuce we got 2 weeks ago and haven't even opened either of the two heads of lettuce we got last week. I'm eating two huge salads a day! Loving it less and less with time, but still enthusiastic about it because good, local lettuce goes away once it warms up a bit.

If only there were a way to preserve fresh lettuce all through the year :(

CSA Share---May 20th

Another wet spring means late planting for this CSA. They apologized for the slim share this week, but rejoiced that the greenhouses were not flooded by all that rain recently.

• 6 eggs


• large sack baby salad mix and Asian greens (mixed)


• 50 worms

Yup, you read it right. Worms! Small red crawlers, to be exact. The kind you can use to compost kitchen scraps in record time. This CSA is so cool! I already have 2 compost bins sitting unused in the backyard and a 55-gallon rotating compost bin that gets occasional use so I figure "Why not try worm composting (i.e. vermicomposting) as well?" ;) And this is what happens...

I am far too lazy to assemble yet another special compost bin for the worms, so I decide that the 55-gallon rotating bin will have to do. First, I move the bin to the east side of the house where it won't get as much sun. I still have some of last year's compost in there, so it isn't an easy move :( Second, I dump in a tub of recent kitchen scraps and two tubs of water before dropping in the worms and closing it up. Finally, I mix, mix, mix, open the lid, and VIOLA! I see steam. STEAM?!

Oh no.

Our recent warm weather coupled with the bin's near-constant placement in the sun has led to a significant amount of heat being stored in that old compost. Even at 9 AM, the soil is hot enough to create steam. Good for killing weed seeds, but not so good for 50 small red crawlers. Erk.

A New CSA!

What a joy! After our terrible experience with Bob Brackett's CSA last year (which has since been independently confirmed by another of Bob's former shareholders as the worst CSA experience ever), we have begun the new growing season with a new group called the Prairieland CSA. It's managed by a non-profit organization, not the farmer, so the farmer family does their job and the organization handles all the PR with the kind of administrative know-how that inspires confidence! Yippee! I also love the Moore Family's produce and chicken, so I knew the quality of the products before signing on.

Our first share was this week (2 weeks earlier than Bob's start date):

• 6 eggs, pasture-raised


• 1# whole wheat flour


• 1 medium sack of salad mix and Asian greens (combined)

Now that's the way to start when you don't have anything! As a new member of the CSA, I received a cookbook as well. It's more of a how-to-cook-from-a-CSA-share kind of manual with basic instructions on the types of dishes that do well with a variety of fresh ingredients (quiches, crepes, casseroles, pastas, etc.). An entire chapter is devoted to cooking with fresh herbs. I look forward to that educational experience.

Peppers and the Snuggle Chair

It's a rainy day, so I've been working on some indoor tasks. I decided to process all the peppers and onions from our CSA shares over the last few weeks...FINALLY! Sorry for not posting my weekly CSA haul in a while...it's been lackluster and I've been lazy :)

Anyway! I'm cutting and gutting a bunch of sweet bell peppers to freeze when Alice runs in and asks for a taste. This girl will eat large amounts of almost anything as long as it comes off the cutting board. Weird, I know, but I just can't say "no" to a babe asking for fresh fruits and veggies! I hand her one of the red peppers and watch. She grips it with her little hand, stuffs one end in her mouth, then suddenly jerks her head backwards and shudders. She drops the pepper to the ground and starts clawing at her tongue. She's done similar things in response to leaf lettuce and fuzzy toys, so I don't catch on right away that I had actually given her one of the "mystery hybrid" peppers Bob warned us about. He isn't sure WHAT they are because they're a freakish cross from a couple peppers the previous year. I put the pepper in my mouth and INSTANTLY realize my mistake.

Yikes! By this time, Alice is crying and signing "hot" and saying "mouf" "mouf" "mouf" through her sobs. I get the girl some cold milk and a slice of bread. The milk appears to help a bit but she keeps pointing at her mouth with a hurt expression. I figure some of the pepper oil is on her lips and I should wipe it off. So, not thinking, I use my pepper-oil-soaked fingers to grab the corner of a rag, wet it, and wipe her mouth. More screams! More cries! D'oh! Realizing my mistake, I rush her off to the snuggle chair, being careful not to touch ANYTHING with my fingertips. We rock for a few minutes and alternate a bite of bread with a swig of cold milk. She eventually calms down and runs off to play.

Thank goodness for infantile amnesia.

Now I'm stuck with spicy fingertips that won't go away after repeated washings with every soap/detergent in the house. Maybe I can get Bobby to take out my contact lenses tonight...

CSA Share August 5th---The Last Straw

That tears it!

How can you mess up raspberries?! I didn't even know it was possible, but Bob Brackett served up a whole pint of perfectly dark red, perfectly formed, SOUR raspberries in our CSA share this week. His heirloom tomatoes and bell peppers both were beautiful and sweet. Sweeter than the raspberries.

There are all sorts of issues you need to consider when you're growing, picking, and transporting fresh produce for a largish group of people. We've also had an abnormally wet growing season that has disrupted/destroyed many plantings. Considering these points, I've overlooked many of the quality and quantity issues so far with Bob's produce, but sour raspberries cannot be overlooked.

STRIKE 1: Sour, smooshy strawberries

STRIKE 2: Very little bang for the buck

STRIKE 3: Sour, tasteless raspberries

I will not be returning to Bob next year. Nor will I recommend him to others. Here's the total haul for this week's share:
1 pint SOUR raspberrries

1 cup heirloom cherry-ish tomatoes

1 large zucchini

2 sweet peppers

2 Walla Walla onions

2 small heads of garlic

At least my own garden is producing well. My Amish Paste tomatoes (from Seed Saver's Exchange) are melt-in-your-mouth tender, slightly sweet, and very meaty. Good for saucing/pasting/drying. The Roma tomatoes are less flavorful but more firm. Good for canning whole. My french green beans are coming along nicely, too.

CSA share July 29

A delicious blend of sweet and savory, all excellent quality. This is the first week I felt I got my money's worth ($14 a week), but only because I received a double share...a friend is out of town and I get to eat her share. Below is a single share's worth:

4 cherry tomatoes

2 Walla Walla sweet onions

1 pint small red potatoes

2 sweet peppers (green bell and white bell)

1 pint blackberries

2 summer squash (good size, not too big)

1 branch of basil (18-24" long)

Taking home a double share of this crop was fun. Since we're not big pepper-eaters, I chopped and froze them for fajitas or chili later. Alice and I consumed the first pint...and a half...of blackberries on the way to pick up Bobby, so the rest are his, but I don't know why I say that because I don't think he's eaten ANY of them yet and it's been a whole 16 hours! The basil got wilty, so we're dehydrating it. The potatoes and squash will go into something for dinner tonight...something tasty, hopefully. We're not big onion-eaters, either, so I may freeze or dehydrate them for quick meals later.

CSA share July 22nd

A smattering of oddities this week...

2 cherry tomatoes (yes, just 2)

2 small heads of fresh garlic

2 Walla Walla sweet onions

1.5 cups small red potatoes

1/2 cup blackberries

1 large bunch of purslane (a succulent weed)

2 banana peppers

1 bell pepper

2 semi-tart apples

The blackberries and cherry tomatoes didn't last past dinner the first night. I'll be freezing the onions, peppers, and ground garlic. We ate the potatoes last night (steamed/roasted with herbs and olive oil). The purslane went straight into the garbage...sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to eat something I've been fighting so long, and I refuse to put it in the compost pile. Alice has been eating the apples fresh.

Pickled Beets and Oregano

Alice has never been a picky eater, but she surprised me this week.

I was eating some of my delicious pickled beets for lunch and Alice asked for a taste. Her first response was a "blech" face, but then she saw me continue to eat them. She tried it again and asked for more. And more. And more. We finished the rest of the jar together.

Bummer. I didn't pickle enough beets to last BOTH of us through the winter.

Later that day, Alice found her way into our spice closet and discovered a baggie of dehydrated oregano from our last CSA entry. She asked for a taste, so I gave her one. She asked for more. And more. And then she was done.

Where did this kid come from?

CSA share June 24th

I think I'll give up trying to take pictures of each share. With the Family History Center thing going on and work picking up and a large trip out of town looming in the extremely near future, I just haven't managed to pull out the camera.

1 pint gooseberries (new to me! pretty sour.)

1/2 pint sour cherries (just threw them in the pile with the others)

1/4# salad mix

12" branch of lemon balm (how the HECK do I use this?!)

12" branch of oregano (is it heresy to dry it before I use it??)

2 Walla Walla onions

I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing with all of this before Friday morning when we leave. I may dehydrate the herbs and onions. Probably eat the gooseberries fresh.

CSA share June 17th

Sorry this is sooooooo late getting posted. I was a little disappointed in this week's share so there was very little enthusiasm to post it. Our spring this year has been extremely wet. It has delayed planting, stunted growth, and/or slaughtered untold numbers of early crops that must be replanted.
And the strawberries are still sour.

1 pint strawberries

1 scant pint snap peas

1/4# salad mix

CSA share June 10th

2 pints strawberries

1 pint snap peas

1/2 # spicy mustard greens

1 small head of red romaine lettuce

I don't have a picture today because I STILL haven't recharged my camera batteries. We ate all the snap peas for dinner (Alice crunched on a couple on the way home from our CSA pickup site). The strawberries were in poor shape and still quite sour. I've been a little disheartened by the sour strawberries this year. Are all homegrown strawberries like that?

The lettuce is amazing, though. Yesterday I chopped up the head, washed the pieces and spun them dry, then totally forgot about them until this afternoon when I wanted to use the salad spinner for something else. Oops! Store-bought lettuce would have turned into soggy tissue paper by now, but my CSA lettuce bits were only slightly limp. Fresh makes a difference! And it saves my tail.

CSA share June 3rd

The picture isn't great because our REAL camera's batteries ran out of juice and I didn't want to go rummaging for the charger while those two pints of strawberries just sat around waiting for me to take their picture. Those babies were calling my name the second I smelled them. So the picture was taken from Bobby's cell phone. Not bad. You even get a peek at Alice's chunky legs and my Mom-hands. I'm actually quite happy with the way my hands look. They're just like I remember my mom's hands looking when I was young...kinda boney and veiny. Working hands.

2# rhubarb

1/2 # salad mix

2 pints strawberries

1 small bunch garlic chives

We're eating the berries fresh (Alice is addicted!), the salad mix is as bold as ever, and this batch of rhubarb may be frozen for later use...maybe for October when it's almost cool enough to use the oven again. Is rhubarb any good on the grill?