doing the math

this is the farm share i got this week.  the farm share cost $450 for june through the end of october. that's just about $21 a week. let's do a comparison against giant, a grocery store near me. which is cheaper than whole foods, where we typically shop since it is two blocks from the house. i used peapod, the online delivery service. i chose organic where available. while the farm share is not strictly organic, i feel like it's a better comparison for quality.

- small, seeded watermelon $7.99

- pint blueberries $4.99

- bulb of fennel $2.49

- 5 pears $6.45 ($1.29 each)

- eggplant: 1 purple, 2 white, 1 orange turkish $7.96 ($1.99 each, but the grocery store only has purple)

- 4 large heirloom tomatoes $5.56 ($1.39 each)

- 1 green pepper $1.99

- mixed small tomatoes $3.49

that's a total of $40.92. ummm so the answer is yes, it's worth it. no question! not only do we get to try all kinds of new things (orange turkish eggplants??), but it's less expensive for a better quality product. and we're supporting a local farm family. obviously i am passionate about this - i think it may be the focus of too many posts!

our next adventure? milk delivery! we should get put on a route in the next couple of weeks : ) i will definitely let you know how it goes - i am very excited. i've been wanting to do this for over a year now.  

blueberry buckle

we have gotten a lot of blueberries in our farm share this year. tons and tons. i have eaten them in my yogurt, juiced, or frozen most of them, but we were still having a hard time finishing them before they started to go bad. so i pulled out one of my favorite cookbooks, the family baker, to inspire me. i'm not sure if it's in print now, but i have always had excellent success with the recipes and they are super easy to follow. each entry includes other ideas for variations, entertaining tips, substitutions, and a little history of where the recipe originated. so i decided on a blueberry buckle to take to a backyard barbecue we had on sunday afternoon : )

it's basically cake batter with blueberries on top. a sweet, slightly lemon-y cake batter and farm-fresh blueberries!

then you dab the rest of the batter on top. it doesn't matter if it's ugly, or uneven. i think it's kind of supposed to be like that. 

then a super yummy crumb topping goes all over the top (and maybe the counter...).  so it's kind of like a breakfast-y coffee cake. but we ate it with ice cream and it was a hit! 

not only did tony dress to match the blueberries, but he had seconds! the best part of cooking and baking is having people to enjoy it. 

...oh and having home-made baked goodies for breakfast monday morning was a plus, too : )

working

we got a sander. true to form, phil researched and then comparison shopped for a couple of weeks. he decided we need a random orbital sander, since we plan to use it mainly for refinishing furniture. so we tested it this weekend on the craigslist dresser. i'll do a full post once we finish the piece (i had a bachelorette party saturday night, so we couldn't finish), but we were able to get the entire piece sanded and a couple drawers primed. we had to sand the edges by hand, and the tutorials we read recommended using a sponge sander. well those cost almost $10 (!!), so i rigged one out of a sponge from the garage and a 79 cent sheet of sandpaper :) hoping to finish the dresser this weekend! well, everything except the hardware... that is a big decision!

planning for fall

i started some fall seeds! spinach, kale, lettuce, swiss chard, thyme, and oregano.  most of the seeds are from my favorite seed catalog, but the lettuce is from my mom. when i went home over memorial day, she took some of the bolted lettuce from her garden and let it dry to save the seeds for me. i hope it sprouts! 

i bought some potting soil, because i don't use regular soil for seed-starting.  then i have these seed-starting plastic containers that i re-use over and over. i ordered them about four years ago, when we moved to maryland, and have used them at least once or twice a year since then. i just fill each pocket with the soil, then plant a few seeds, and mist with water. i start them inside - no light needed until they sprout. i just keep misting them. once they sprout, i thin them so a couple per section have a better chance of getting big and strong. once i have a leaf or two, i transplant into little 4" pots - i save them whenever i buy a plant. part of the quest for no waste in my household! 

i also transplanted some of the basil starts in my other pots.  if you have a basil plant, let a few stems go to flower. then let the flower dry up - that is your seed. drop into some dirt and keep it watered... a new basil plant will sprout before you know it. i have tripled the basil plants at my house in less than a year! so this round is for giving away : ) 

updates

these are the assembled chairs.  they are reproductions of one of my favorite chairs and surprisingly good. one of the major differences is the overstock version is a thin plastic shell seat, rather than a thick molded polypropylene or fiberglass.  either way, they look great in the dining room! the clean white chairs with the wood table is exactly what i was hoping for : ) not a huge fan of reproductions, since as a designer i'm a proponent of supporting other designers, but i couldn't find any in our price range or on craigslist.  we need six chairs - at $300-$350 each, there is no way! we had to assemble them, which was fun. and by fun, i mean i got really frustrated assembling two while phil did the other four. i try really hard, but i'm not the most adept...

and this is the guest room. doesn't look so pink : )  the duvet i ordered looked way too feminine, so now i'm hunting for a charcoal striped set - like this but hopefully at a different price point. i also want to make a grey upholstered headboard. the room is too small for a full bed frame - we did fit a queen bed into a 9x11 room - so looks like it is a headboard-only solution for us. one of these days we will finish a room so i can post finished photography! 

yellow rose of glover park

this was the rose bush in our front yard on closing day, mid-april.  lush & beautiful. the bush is not the healthiest and this was the only bloom we had... 

until this week.  my sweet mother-in-law helped me trim the bush back. a lot. the leaves were yellow and it was so spindly.  suddenly, this week, the bush erupted into bloom.  granted, they are not nearly as beautiful as the first one - it was our closing day symbolic bloom - but it is prolific.  i'll trim it back more later this year, to give it some shape, but until then i will enjoy each and every bloom : )

progress!

craigslist, overstock and rue la la :) we've been busy shopping for deals! the end of the month is the best time for craigslist, since people are preparing to move. and rue la la has had a white sale a while back, but it's just now coming in... this was my first overstock experience - $2.95 shipping!! on six dining chairs!!