Tag Archives | time

Phoebe's little toes, grown on love and local food

When I started this year-long commitment to blogging about our CSA, there were many things I didn’t expect. I didn’t expect to buy a house. I didn’t expect to get laid off. And I didn’t expect to have a beautiful baby girl. But I did. And, while blogging through these changing circumstances has been difficult, it has never been difficult to eat and shop at our CSA. Our farm food has been a constant in the midst of all the other turmoil. It’s delicious, nutritious food that is easy to pick up and easy to afford. It’s just that simple.

These postpartum weeks, I have had little time to shower and cook, much less blog. So this post is a “three in one” for weeks 43, 44 and 45. The pictures of our food take for each week are shown below.

Pancakes that my friend, Amberly, made for us.

One thing that has been a HUGE blessing these weeks is that friends, family and people from church have brought us meals to help us out while we’ve been figuring out how to be parents. I like to think, in some small way, they all became part of us, and part of Phoebe. You see: you are what you eat. Phoebe is made up of everything that I’ve eaten over the past 45(ish) weeks, and now that she is on this side of the womb, she drinks my milk, which is still made up of what I eat. When someone brings us a meal, made with ingredients, time and love, those things become a part of me and a part of my milk, and in turn go into becoming a part of Phoebe. We are all building her together, one bite at a time.

Mmm…I’m hungry!

WEEK 43:

Collard Greens
2 Pears
Carrots
2 Leeks
Bowl of Apples
Spinach
2 Bags of Peanuts
Bag of Spring Greens

WEEK 44:

Carrots
Parsley
Potatoes
Bok Choi
Apples
Pears
Spinach
Braising Mix
Leeks

WEEK 45:

Rhubarb
Radishes
Onion
Carrots
Apples
Pears
Red Chard
Parsley
Spinach
Braising Mix
Garlic Greens

By ekwetzel
2011-05-22

What have I been doing with myself now that I don’t have a job? I’ve had time to do a little more reading, for one. As long as my pregnant belly doesn’t interfere!

I know, I know. The blogs have been posted pretty inconsistent lately. At the end of the year last year, I was laid off due to lack of hours at my job, and with that my access to the internet diminished significantly. No, I wouldn’t blog-on-the-job. My bosses were really cool, down-to-Earth guys, however, and they wouldn’t mind it if I did personal stuff on my lunch break, or if I stayed late to work on a personal project (on my own dime).

I don’t have a computer at home until my husband comes home from work (he uses his on the job). Our days have been so busy, especially with preparations for our baby on the way, that taking a few hours to write in the evening hasn’t always been a top priority. Sometimes you have to let things slide. Sometimes slacking off is good for the home. I am happy to say I have not sacrificed quality family time for you, dear readership, no matter how inconsistent that has made my blogging.

I do enjoy writing for you, though. I do enjoy thinking about our food and being honest and open about the way eating locally has affected us.

In light of our decreased finances, many things have shifted in our budget (one of which is my plans to buy my own computer). One thing that has remained rooted is our commitment to our local CSA. It is still cheaper to buy food from the farm than it is from the store. It is still cheaper and healthier to buy raw ingredients than processed foods, packaged dinners or fast food. We feel stronger and healthier eating veggies, milk and eggs from our local community. And we are confident that we will be raising our baby up on the right nutrients and values, from as early as the womb.

It’s not a hard decision for us to stick with the farm. We feel blessed to have it available, and we refuse to lay them off. Their presence on our plate is too irreplaceable.

By ekwetzel
2011-01-10

WEEK 27 – This week a new thing was started at our CSA: a community box. If you have something in your basket that you don’t like, you can add it to the community box, and replace it with something else that another share member didn’t want. Brilliant! I got extra potatoes and an extra pear!
(Top Row)
Garlic
Shallots
Purple Onion
Beets
Turnips
(Middle row)
Potatoes
Apples

Pears
Carrots
(Bottom row)
Mustard greens
Leeks

I drove out to the farm the other day, fighting construction on WA-16 and congestion on I-5.  These day it seems like everyone decides to drive somewhere at the exact moment that I need to go to the farm. Traffic was never this bad in the winter or spring. What gives?

Not to mention how busy life has been, in general. Work is busiest for me in the summer, since I work for a real estate company. Summer season = real estate season. In addition, we are involved in church, and we want to deepen our relationships with friends and family. Then there are all the wonderful fairs and festivals that come with summertime that we haven’t even had the energy to go to. I’ve lived in Tacoma for almost 5 years, and I’ve never even been to the Taste of Tacoma. There are a lot of good things in my life, but it’s easy to feel stretched thin come July & August.

I have a little garden plot and some potted flowers. I dream of having backyard chickens and a big spice garden one day. Some days I think it would be nice and quaint to retire to the country, live of a few acres and grow everything we eat. But who am I kidding? We don’t have the gusto to farm. Mr. Wetzel and I are urbanites. And each summer we are far too strung out to have the energy to care for plants or livestock on top of everything else we have going on.

Sure. I could be romantic and impractical; I could quit my job and be a full-time gardener, but let’s get real here, people. I kill half of everything I plant. I forget to weed. The only reason my plants survive is I keep trying and get lucky with a few of them. Besides, I like my job a lot, and my skill set is much more suited to customer service and administration.

The other day I fought the traffic to get out to Terry’s Berries. When I arrived, it was a gorgeous, sunny day, but I needed to grab the produce, drop it off at home, and get back to work to activate a couple new property listings. When I arrived at the farm, we had strawberries included in the share, but the sign said: “1 pint of strawberries. Pick your own. Strawberry patch this way.”

My first thought was. “I don’t have time for this. I need to get back to work;” but then I realized how high strung I was, took a deep breath (or five), grabbed a green pint basket and thanked the goodness that I wore tevas instead of flip flops. I strolled out to the strawberry patch. I took my time. Soaked up some Vitamin D. Sampled a few extra berries during my toil (I imagine Terry must have known this would happen!).

When I got back to the car, bagged veggies on the back seat, I looked down at the warm little pint of strawberries snuggled into the shotgun seat beside me. “I picked those,” I thought. “Those are fresh, Erin-picked berries.” As I drove home, and eventually back to work, I carried a sweet, warm, calm bit of the farm back within my heart.

We don’t have to be full-time farmers. Mr. Wetzel and I will never be anything more than occasional gardeners. It’s important to us, though, to support local agriculture, not just for the food that goes into our bellies, but also for a connection to the earth that is found beyond air conditioned offices, USDA labels and the ether of the internet. We don’t need to give our lives to the soil. We just need to be reminded, once in awhile, where we came from and where we’re going. It helps to put everything in perspective. It helps us to slow down.

WEEK 2
(clockwise around the outside, starting with bottom left corner):
– Lettuce (2 heads)
– Dandelion Greens
– Fava Beans
– Summer Squash (there were yellow ones available, too, but I thought these little green ones looked tastier)
– Radishes
– Sugar Snap Peas
– Snow Peas
– Beets
– Raspberries (in the middle) (duh, right?)
– 1 dozen eggs

By ekwetzel
2010-07-16