Summer CSA Week 2

It was another great week going out to the farm with Emma. I am thinking that at some point I should try and bring my camera with me when I get my CSA, and then I might have something other than food pictures :-) This week we received spinach, spinach, carrots, radishes, beets, and I also picked some mint from the herb garden. It was a really nice day so Emma and I walked around the gardens a bit. We met two of the apprentices, Molly and Jaimie, who were working hard at cleaning up the spinach beds. Overall it was a good trip, the only disappointment...no eggs! And none for the foreseeable future. Apparently they have been spoken for by some people from a winter delivery service...hopefully in the next couple weeks we will be able to get some eggs again :-) Without further ado, pictures!!!

happenings

Wow, I already posted once this week, and I am actually posting again :-) Exciting times! So it seems that we already have a renter set up for the fall. A girl called me yesterday, who is planning on attending the local college in the fall and wants to move in. Excellent! That is exactly what we need, since our current renter will just be here for the summer. I am a little nervous because we haven't met her yet, but I looked her up on myspace (lovely little spy tool that is) and she seems to be normal enough :-) I just don't want any crazy parties up there, but other than that as long as the rent is paid I could care less :-)

It's definitely a gift from God that we have another renter lined up, since we just found out also yesterday that Matt's health insurance is going to go up $300/month. And that is for the cheapest plan. We aren't sure what we are going to do yet. I would like to just not have any health insurance at this point, paying $11k a year for health insurance that doesn't actually cover us until we pay a $10k deductible...yeah...it doesn't sound right to me either. But, Matt is of course concerned about the catastrophic thing that *could* happen to us at some point. I think my catastrophic thing has already happened in my life time...but that's just me. I am thinking about getting Emma and I a private policy and then have Matt on his work's policy. I think that would end up being cheaper, but I'm not sure because Maine only has one health insurance carrier, so not much in the way of competition. The thing that really gets me is that if we lived in NH, the same exact policy would be half of what it is in Maine, that is just wrong. But, since I can't change that...I don't know. If I didn't expect that we would eventually have another baby I would push to just not have the health insurance for me. If I had to go to the Dr.'s, which I never do, then we could just pay cash, overall it would save us money...unless something happened. What a pain to think about that stuff.

In other news...I am still sick. I think that I might have a sinus infection, but I am going to give it another day before I actually call the Dr. (after my claiming I never go :-)) I don't really want to go on an antibiotic, but the fact that I can't breathe through my nose is a little irritating. I can't blow my nose either...so the sinuses are definitely swollen...and since my mom can no longer breathe through her nose (sinuses collapsed a while ago) I think that I will take my chances with the antibiotics :-)

It's been a beautiful week here, and I haven't really been able to be outside and enjoy it. I have no idea what my garden is doing. I do know that the one tomato seedling I planted in the ground is now dead from being blown all over the place by the wind...so I will be making another trip up to Longfellows to buy some more seedlings. I think that next year I might try the square foot gardening...that sounds a lot easier than hoping for the best. Maybe I should have bought a book about gardening before I just threw seeds in the ground... :-)

months again?

So it has been months since I last wrote. Surprise surprise! In a quick recap, we decided to go to Florida spur of the moment which meant 3 weeks of crazy planning, especially since we were leaving the day after Emma's 1st birthday party. Our trip went extremely well, Emma had a great time. The weather was beautiful. Then we came back to cold and rain...figures :-) Then it was time to dig up the yard for a garden. We are trying our hand at planting in the actual ground this year...of course for the 2 weeks following the planting it has been freezing cold and rainy, so I have no idea if anything will actually grow. I am hopeful...but we'll see. I also have my containers full, which is a plus, although again, not sure how well they will do this year. I have always had the containers on our second floor deck. Not this year, this year we actually have a renter up there (as of this weekend), so no plants up on the deck that is sunny all. day. long.

And now to top it all off, we are all sick. Matt was sick last week, so sick he had to call into work, which I have never seen him do in 10 years. Then Emma got sick...and now me...right now it is just a sore throat, so I am crossing my fingers that will be the extent of it...but really, am I ever that lucky? No, definitely not.

This week was our first CSA pick-up for the summer. I was very excited about that. Emma and I drove over to the farm and looked at their new goats (they added 15 goats this year). They are so cute! I wish that Matt would let us have some goats...well then we would have to deal with the city too...not sure goats are in the cards for us at our current home :-) Anyways, today's pick-up consisted of:

4 big bags of spinach
4 bunches of beet greens with baby beets
a bunch of radishes

I also picked up 2 dozen eggs, you cannot beat farm fresh organic free range eggs. Mmm! I figured I could make some fritatas with the eggs and spinach.

That's about all that is new right now. I know I keep saying that I want to write more, and I do, I just haven't had the time...or the energy when I do have the time! But, we can keep our fingers crossed that I will actually start writing more :-) In the meantime, here are some pictures to enjoy.

Summer Garden

I can’t believe it is time to be thinking about my summer garden! I am so excited this year because I *think* we are going to try and actually plant some things in the ground. I’m not really sure how it will go of course because I haven’t ever planted a garden in the ground, I’m more of a container girl  I mean, who wouldn’t like container gardening? There is no weeding involved!

The problems I am facing:

1. There is a very large tree on the side of our yard which has very large roots about a quarter of the way across the yard.
2. On the exact opposite side of the tree is where the city sewer lines are. These have been dug up twice in the past 5 years due to bad pipes…

Since I am dealing with about .2 acres of total yard…I am left with the middle which has a stump of an old apple tree (which the owner cut down right before we bought the house, dangit). I’m thinking that due to the roots of that big tree I am going to need to do raised beds and have lots of compost. Again I have no idea how to actually garden, so any ideas would be helpful.

I am pretty sure I am still going to do container gardening. I think that I will end up making two raised beds, one where I plant in the ground. The other I am going to put plywood over and use as a platform for my containers. The reason the containers will be on the ground instead of on my lovely deck, is that once we rent the apartment (if we ever rent the apartment), that deck will be the entrance for the tenant, and I can’t picture them wanting my tomatoes crawling up their entryway 

I have kind of branched out a bit from my typical tomatoes/peppers/cukes. This year I am also planting:

Chinese Cabbage
Spaghetti Squash
Flour Corn
Acorn Squash
Pie Pumpkins
Watermelon
Cantaloupe

I am really excited though. I have no idea if any of this stuff will actually grow well. But, if it does, well I will be incredibly happy. I’m not completely sure what I can do with flour corn, I have no grain grinder, but the thought of having ground corn flour for tortillas or nachos and my homemade salsa…mmm…I can’t wait! I have also never done anything with fruit, but this seemed like as good a time as any to try it.

My concern is of the woodchuck family that lives down the street at my mom’s. I am hoping that my wonderful husband will be able to build some type of enclosure so that I don’t have to worry about them getting into my plants. And I’m also thinking about trying to put something over the plants as well so the 100’s of crows that we have flying around don’t eat everything. Does anyone have any experience with crows? I mean, is the scarecrow the way to go?

So I am crossing my fingers on this whole garden thing. Of course, I am doing the CSA again with Longmeadow Farm. I was really pleased with it last year, and they have such a wonderful selection. I may have veg coming out of my ears come August…wouldn’t that be heavenly!

My plan is to start some seeds indoors this year as well, something I have never tried. I may need my mom’s help on this since she was a master gardener back in the day. And since she was recently laid off (one of the major stresses in my life at the moment) she may have plenty of time to help me get this garden started! But, if anyone has any tips on starting a garden, please send them my way. I didn’t even prep the area in the fall (something about having a 4 month old kind of got in the way). I am excited though, and I hear enthusiasm is one of the most important ingredients to a successful garden ;-)

well...

I have loads of stuff to write about, but can't seem to sit down to do it. We are going through many things in my family right now, not necessarily bad. I am hoping life calms down soon enough so that I can start posting again about something slightly more interesting than my current going on's. With that, I will leave this for now, and hopefully I won't be gone for much longer :-)

good intentions....

is what I have when it comes to this blog. Yet, no matter how much I want to write, I can't seem to manage the time to actually do the writing! Or, I do get to sit down and write something, and then just stare at a blank screen waiting for something inspirational to come up...that just isn't happening. I am trying though!

Sara has started a challenge called The James Challenge. I think I am going to join. Well I actually already did join the Yahoo! group. I am pretty excited about this though. I never have thought to memorize an entire book of the Bible, and James, being relatively short, I think is a great place to start.

I have been trying to get to the gym as of late, which is good since Matt and I got gym memberships for Christmas. It has been sort of difficult to figure out a good routine to get there. I would like to go in the morning, but it gets a little crazy around here in the morning between Matt getting ready for work, and me trying to make sure Emma stays asleep until 7 or 8. I usually feed her somewhere between 4 and 6am, so getting to the gym for 5am is always up in the air. Take yeterday, I was up at 4:30, tried to feed Emma but she was not waking up. So I get up and get ready to leave. I am literally an eighth of a mile from the house and my cell phone starts going off. Emma is awake, and hungry. So I drive home, feed Emma, then get to the gym 30 minutes after I want to, meaning I get to spend a whole 20 minutes there...Now, is it worth it? Well I hope so! I just need a place to go until it gets warmer outside...and some of the 18 feet of snow we have is gone.

Our CSA is going really well. We go every other week, and I end up coming home with 4 very heavy LL Bean canvas bags worth of veggies. I can't really keep up with it all unfortunately. I should be better at it, but there are still many veggies that go unused. I know we would use more than a half share though, so I tend to stay with the full share. Plus, we split it with my mom. Matt is mailing the check for the summer CSA today, so hopefully we will be all set with that. I probably should call Farmer Denis and let him know that we want to do the CSA this year, we just haven't gotten the check to the mailbox yet.

I have also joined a lovely group of earthy mamas called Green Mothering. We meet at the Farmers' Market in town. I think it is great that I have finely found some like minded people! I wish it were a Christian group, as I am starting to think there are no Christian young people in my area, but it's not. It is a start though, and maybe after I attend for a while, we can get into the discussion of Christianity. We'll see of course, I am still in the introduction stages.

OK, well I guess that is just a ramble, and not really a great blog entry. However, that is what my life seems to be at the moment...a ramble. We are in the process of refinancing, trying to get the apartment squared away for a renter, and of course the business of being a mama comes into play as well :-) Not that these are excuses...no...think of them as...well...ok...just excuses for not writing ;-)

2009!

I don't know how the time gets away from me like it has for the past year, but it is surprising me nonetheless. I always was one of those people that had the fall fly by right through Christmas and into the New Year, and then have it slow down to a crawl until my birthday at the end of April. Winters are long in Maine. However, I feel like this winter will be different. I think that this year is going to move quickly, just like last year. It's kind of sad really. I can't say that I had Emma this year anymore, that was last year now. She is almost 8 months old now. We have had her first Thanksgiving, her first Christmas, and her first New Year.

This year I have a lot of goals. Probably more goals then I ever have set for myself. I'm not great at New Year's resolutions, but I try. I am hoping that this year I can accomplish everything I set out to do. I haven't even formulated most of these goals yet though. They are still floating around in my head, not yet down on paper. I am hoping to get them all out today, and maybe then I will be brave enough to post them for the world to know (or the 1 faithful person who continues to check my blog).

One of the biggest goals I have for the year is to continue on my path to better self-sufficiency. I guess that isn't the correct way of putting it though. I mean, we join the summer and winter CSA's, that definitely isn't self sufficient. Maybe a better steward of God's creation and hopefully a smaller simpler life. Can it be done? Well, with one foot still in the consumerist society as not to completely become a hermit, who knows. I guess I will try and continue to plug away learning new skills, trying to preserve more food, planting more of a garden. All of my plans seem to revolve around food...and the rest of it I assume will just fall into place eventually :-)

My other big goal is to write more. I really do love writing. I wish that I could write a book (if only I had a good idea). Writing helps me to process, and it also helps my anxiety level :-) If I get it out on paper, then I tend to not think about it so much. Considering I am an eternal pessimist, probably a good thing :-)

We'll see how I do I guess. I am cautiously optimistic about this year. I have a good feeling about the things to come. I hope that everyone out there had a wonderful Christmas and that everyone is as excited as I am to start a new year!