Independence Days – Week 7

Summer arrived this week, and not just on the calendar.  It finally got hot. 

We had a couple days without rain, and I was lamenting this, because I really love the rain, and because I don’t want it to be really hot when I am in labor at home with no a/c!

Saturday night, while doing some shopping I had about three hours of “false labor” or pre-labor as the textbooks kindly like to call it.  I had strong contractions pretty consistently that were a minute long and three to five minutes apart.  This actually made us extend our shopping expedition to include a few more groceries than we normally would have, since we thought I was starting labor.  But once we got home, they died out completely!  I did NOT experience anything like that with Henry.  We waited around for most the night Saturday, but, alas, the contractions did not return.

Sunday was Father’s Day, and it was pretty low key around here.  We kept hoping the contractions would start back up (and thus tried planning activities that involved walking to entice them back), but we were disappointed.  Nil.  So the baby hung out in my belly, while I moped in the house and Rick and Henry mowed the lawn and ran through the sprinkler. 

Tuesday came, still no more regular contractions or anything harder than a normal Braxton-Hicks contraction, so I headed to the farm to do my weekly work on the CSA.  I’m glad I did because we got produce for the first time this year!  We got peas, red leaf lettuce, purple kohlrabi, turnips, garlic and a zucchini. 

We actually got bonus veggies too, since the guy I car pool to the farm with is on vacation in Alaska with his family, he said we could eat anything from their share that wouldn’t keep.  So I will refrain from eating his garlic (though it will be hard), and we’ll see if the turnips and kohlrabi make it (though I’m taking the tops). 

Here are the facts for week seven:

Plant Something –  nothing new went into the ground this week.

Harvest Something – Eggs and our first peas! Besides that, does hoeing billions of weeds count as harvesting?!?!

Preserve Something – Froze two containers of the below soup. 

Reduce Waste– or, as I’ve recently seen it called: “Waste Not” – I’m excited to put something other than my ‘usual’ list of recycling, etc. in this category this week.  Instead of tossing the tops of the kohlrabi to the chickens as I normally would, I made a soup with them and a left over ham bone that would have otherwise gone to waste! 

Preparation and Storage - nada.

Build Community Food Systems – still spreading the word about the Englewood Farmers Market, working on the CSA.  Discussed splitting a buffalo with another CSA member as well.

Eat the Food – We’ve been enjoying the CSA goodies and snacking on peas here and there.  I’ll have to think up a recipe to share….