Our Vegetable Summer

Prepping oven-roasted tomato sauce.

Our CSA is done. We had our last pickup a couple of weeks ago and I felt pretty sad. I was nervous about trying this but it turns out that it suits me well.

The main drawback about subscribing to a CSA is the possibility of feeling overwhelmed by the steady flow of food. That's part of the reason we waited until this summer to try it. This is the first year we've had 5 people old enough to eat a lot of vegetables.

My favorite things about the CSA:

1. Limited options. Every week the farm decided what we'd be eating and it gave shape to our meals.
2. New vegetable friends. Some of the things we ate this summer were brand new to me (salad turnips, bok choy, beets, kohlrabi) and some had a bad reputation (radishes). Once they show up in the week's share, I feel obliged to give them a try. In every case we made progress. Bok choy, turnips, and radishes are all warmly welcomed now. The beets are still a trick but we are warming up to them.
3. Creative opportunity. Wanting to finish one week's share before it was time to pick up the next, the last day before our next pick up was creativity-inspiring. My favorite success was topping hotdogs with sauteed radishes and leeks. Ben and I were both skeptical but it was pretty delicious.
4. Novelty vegetables. Baby carrots with green tops are several steps above baby-cut carrots from a plastic bag. Even the boys thought that was neat. More than once I had to cut them off. (Too many carrots in the belly of a small child becomes messy.)
5. Making friends with the farmers. Our CSA, Sandhill Organics, is very well done. The weekly share is varied and has a pleasant but not overwhelming amount of repetition. We get to pick up our food at the farm (lots of people, like my brother, live far from their grower and pick up food at the home of another subscriber). By the end of summer the farmer recognized me. Owen and I could feed the goats and see the broccoli growing in the field.

It's already time to sign up for next year's shares. Ben and the boys are giving a thumbs up to the summer fruit share. Every time we picked up our vegetables the fruit was out on the same table and Owen always tried to take some. Good marketing.

Spelling Test

Jude gave me a spelling test this evening. He is pictured here next to my completed exam. He listed the numbers on the chalkboard in our laundry room and then called me down and recited words for me to spell. The list was less a spelling list than a short, odd paragraph:

go
red
light
I
love
my
cousin
and
he
the
most
thing
is
he
doesn't
love me

I did my best, but Teacher Jude marked several words wrong. He says that's ok because I'm still learning. I asked him which cousin he's talking about. "Nobody, Mom. It's just made up."

Meanwhile, Sam and Owen continued work on an ongoing project. No one has described this Lego creation in words, but I think it's a city. Parking lot in foreground (red), house on the left, marina on the right? You know how it is when something is designed by committee.