In the Box and On the Farm

I love the sight of all those greens! Every week when my CSA box arrives, I plan on posting a picture and a list of the goodies that come inside and yet I have not had the time to stop and post. The unique thing about my CSA this year is the fact that I am receiving it by workshare. So this past Saturday I spent four hours down on the farm working the fields. Again, planning to post my activities, but time got away from me. So here goes. I think it's time to make Thursday's "In the Box and On the Farm" day. I will dedicate one day each week to all the activities involved in my CSA. So this week....
Red and Green Lettuce
Bagged mixed lettuce
Bagged spinach
Rainbow swiss chard
Salad Turnips (I love these!)
Fennel
Green onions

Saturday morning I woke up to beautiful weather. The sun shining and the temps. in the 70's. I could not have asked for better weather to start my first day working on the farm. I headed off to the farm to start work at 8am. Each week will be filled with different duties as needed, so on this day it was work in the fields. It was interesting to learn that the farmland there is actually split into several different small farms. With spring coming to a close, it was time to harvest the spring greens. We tackled the spinach beds first, Cutting along the ground line allows each individual leaf to be ready for washing and packaging. Then off to harvest the salad greens for bagging. Again, cutting along the ground line allows for a quick wash and bag. The nice thing about the salad beds was that cutting them this way will allow the plant to send up one more batch of lettuce for cutting. And to think all this time I just picked individual leaves. Then off to the radishes. Unfortunately, radishes are pretty touchy, and so most of them had already bolted. No more radishes in my CSA box to fall. I quick break and a shady spot for the harvested crops and then it was off to the hoop houses. There we harvested the full heads of lettuce. With a full truck load of produce we headed back to the farm to the washing station where we dropped everything to be washed. My field work was done and it was time to head on out. While I know that in the middle of summer when the sun is pounding or in the middle of a rainy day this may not prove to be so enjoyable, I did actually relish this time. There is nothing like the sound of birds and breeze. Working in the fresh air, listening to the nearby chickens and great conversation with like minded individuals was just what this momma needed. Learning the aspects of what it takes to run a farm is also rather interesting. Even though I only keep a small backyard garden, I'm sure some of the tips will carry over. It also made opening my CSA box this week all the more meaningful. When I opened my box I saw things that I had worked to harvest.

Warm Weather Days

Warm weather has finally arrived here and the plants are all in full bloom. I've actually been taking pictures of the sage in the front for the past week in the hopes of posting my story with sage, but life is full these days and I just can't seem to find as much computer time as I would like. Ah well, I'm enjoying the time outdoors. That sage is three years old now and this will be it's first year in bloom. The first year I picked it up as a little plant at my local farmers market. Right before the frost hit that year I chopped the whole thing down to the root. Who knew it was not an annual. It was fun though to dry all the leaves and have a cupboard full of sage. I have to admit here that as much as I dream of producing all my own fruits and veggies and herbs, I don't exactly have a green thumb. So imagine my suprise the following summer when new leaves appeared at the base of the plant. Lesson learned! So this past fall I just let it go and was amazed out quickly it moved into action this spring. Yet again I was very surprised to see the flower buds appearing a few weeks ago. While I am aware that you need to pick your herbs before they flower, I decided to just let it go this year. She is such a beauty in the yard right now. I sometimes thing I should do some reading up on sage, but it has actually been kind of fun just finding things out about this plant as I go along.

And my beauties. Planted right out along the front of the house. In full bloom right now, the smell is absolutely amazing. I can smell them as a come up the drive.

Moses here is almost 6 months now and had decided he's an outdoor cat. I don't mind though. He stays in the yard and keeps me company while I take care of the outside work. He has such a personality I can't help but laugh at him most days.
I'm finally settling in to my roll as single, working, homeschooling mom managing an auto-immune disease. It has it's ups and downs but I think we are doing fairly well. I posted about the new CSA season over here and look forward to what the season has to offer. I hope to start posting regularly now that we are settling into our new lives at home.

The Last Few Days

Twice a month my local library holds "Knitter's Night". I don't always make it, but I try to get there as much as possible. I've been teaching my neighbor to crochet and she has been working diligently to just get the stitches down. So on Tuesday night, we both headed on over to the library. The project above got stitched up and made into a pretty bag to carry her supplies in. The edges are uneven so the bag was a perfect idea. I am so proud of her first project. Now for the handle.

In other news, this little (or not so little) guy had decided to build his home in the bush out in front of where I work. Everyday as I come in and out, I find him wondering around the yard. Yesterday, he decided to have his lunch right outside of the front door. It was pretty cute to watch him munching on dandelion flowers. It's pretty nice when the office building backs up to a forest and is across the street from a farm field.

Well another semester at the local college is over. I spent the rest of the day finalizing papers. It will be nice to have a break for a few weeks until the summer semester starts. Now off to the garden to get the sorely neglected garden beds ready for planting next week.

Excitement is in the air

So many things have been going on the past few months, that there has been barely time to post here. Over the next few days things will be winding down. The spring semester at school will finish up next week and my participation in the Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge will end on Monday. I still have many other projects on my plate, but it seems that we may finally be finding our rhythm here at home. With that done, we have many things to be excited about these days. This package arrived on Thursday. Of course we had to dive in right away and look through every single book in this box. Next years homeschool package. It will be her first official year at home and she can't wait to dive in.


After looking through everything, she begged to be able to read one book. What's a mom to do. I let her, and she ended up awake until 2am trying to finish the book. She didn't quite make it. That's okay, we have a whole year ahead of us.


She also found this little guy at dad's new place and has become very attached to taking care of him. I never new that toads "chirped" until I met this little guy. It's has been fun seen the excitement of learning come back to her since she's been home.
My older daughter loves school and so we have set about getting her registered and ready to move on to junior high next year. They have such opposite personalities.
I hope to be back and blogging regularly here. I've missed sharing our adventures.

Spring is Here!

"The flowers of the apple are perhaps the most beautiful of any tree so copious and so delicious to both sight and scent." - Henry David Thoreau


This blog has been left idle with so many projects going on these days, but as I was walking through the yard today I couldn't help but smile. My favorite part of spring is seen the crab apple in bloom. So I had to share the view.

Thrifting

After last week's snow you would be amazed to know that the temperature here today reached 65 degrees. In the window my orchid is blooming and it feels like spring is in the air. I love the way this orchid comes back every year at this time and blooms for a few months before it quiets down again until next year. It is something I look forward to every year. Amazingly I got lazy last year and did not cut down the dead flower stalk and low and behold the tip of that stalk bloomed this year along with the new one.

In other news. I found this pair of binoculars in the local thrift store recently and picked them up. Perfect for spring time bird watching. With my daughter homeschooling this year we are considering adding Project FeederWatch to our list this spring. They have been getting a lot of use in the last few days with the warm and sunny days.

I also found these beautiful hot pads. I was drawn to the design and had to pick them up. Does anyone know what this pattern is? I would love to replicate these but I'm not sure how these were even created. In any case, these will be getting a lot of love and use around here.

Time for a Break

It started about an hour ago. They are calling for about 8 inches by 9pm. The kids are off to friends for the night. Now at only 4:30 in the afternoon I sit alone. Total silence. I am not sure what to do with myself. Oh sure, I have plenty I could be doing. But there is something about the silence and the snow falling outside that makes me want to toss the to do list out the window. So with several hours of freedom I am thinking it might be time to curl up with a good book.

These two are new to my shelves. One came in from Paper Back Swap and the other was an amazing find from the local thrift store. Yes, I think it's a good night for reading.