Monday, June 15, 2009

saturday onward


my backseat after the farmers market. all fresh, healthy food to bless the poor!


saturday morning augustine and i woke up early and headed down to set up the justice gardens booth at the farmers market in clintonville. the tent was being a serious pain in the rear and jen anderson and i sat there for almost 20 minutes holding it up while we talked to people. SO FREAKING EMBARRASSING. however david quickly came and in seconds had popped it up and out or whatever and it was right as rain. my blood pressure was through the roof because of that little snafu. as you can see from the above picture, we had an amazing day at the market. people were so generous and we were able to donate 40-50 lbs of fresh food to two locations (fruit of the vine on 5th and faith mission mens shelter on 8th) the energy of it all was intoxicating!

after we had wrapped things up there the garden club met at our booth and we caravaned out to our friend jeff and michelle's 43 acre farm in coshochton. olive has this very weird thing where she will poop and pee independently. which would not be a remarkable except she poops first, then minutes later has to pee. like, who does that?! i dont even know how that is physically possible! but we ran into that on the way there and had to stop for her to go pee on the side of the road. good times! the farm was great. we hiked through the woods and saw where one earthship is built and the others are going to go, as well as their gardens and even the natural spring on their land. i'd never drank out of a spring before! i was pleasantly surprised at how chilly the water was straight out of the ground! it tasted completely neutral as well, which also surprised me. the elevated there is like 800 ft up so there is no chance of the spring being contaminated by farm run off or anything, which was great. seriously, delicious water! we picnicked there and hung out. it was such a great time.

the 5th ave food bank opens at 5 so we headed back earlier than we had wanted but hey, i had to get the food there. turns out they were not able to take on all of that food but a man there took me down to the men's shelter on 8th where we deposited the rest. (i must say, i was glad he came with me because that isn't really the type of place a woman should go alone.) the whole experience of seeing the trickle down effect of people blessing other people just had me in tears. God is good, people are good.

i started feeling really hypoglycemic as i was leaving and just felt so dead tired. i came in and plopped on the couch and announced that i just wanted to lay there indefinitely. apparently our friends heidi and trenton called and were having a cookout. never one to pass up food and friends i sprang up, grabbed the strawberries from our CSA, and hit the road. turns out by cookout they meant just us and another friend (no complaints). the food was outstanding and we ate like we hadn't eaten in days. asparagus, the best corn on the cob i've ever had, burgers, brats, grilled chicken, fruit salad, and ice cream sandwiches eaten out by a fire pit. i mean could we be any more clique summer? again no complaints! augustine kept talking about his "food baby" (enormous, full stomach) and making me laugh.

today i took the kids to their first day of gymnastics camp at whetstone. it was okay. they pretty much let the kids run around for 30 minutes and have free time and then do 15 minutes of actual skills. for $25 i sort of expect more than 10 minutes with a parachute but maybe im being a baby. whatever the kids love it.

im making a strawberry pie tonight for small group.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey there, I work on a CSA in my area and love it... the only thing I struggle with is new and creative recipes for all the local, in season produce. I would love it if you could share with us some yummy, creative ideas from your kitchen! Hope that isn't too much to ask! Thanks in advance, ERIN

Anonymous said...

Thanks for bringing your fresh produce to Faith Mission on 8th Ave! I don't know if you noticed our container garden behind the shelter, but we are trying to provide as much fresh food as possible to our residents. Thanks again.

Jennifer Hamilton
Director of Communications
Faith Mission

Olive said...

i did!! what a great idea! what are you guys growing?

Jennifer said...

Tomatoes, beans, basil, lettuce and radishes to name a few. I think they even have some melon plants. We can always use volunteers to help with the garden if you are anyone you know would like to help out.

Olive said...

jennifer - could i have your contact info?

Anonymous said...

you need to check out the new movie Food Inc. I think you would really enjoy!! check out the website at www.smallfootprintfamily.com

Jennifer said...

jhamilton@lssco.org or 614-228-5200, ext. 1510

Anonymous said...

sorry, that is where I found it try www.foodincmovie.com/index.php for the trailer!

Olive said...

Erin - check out the book "midwest gardeners cookbook". it's broken down by season and it has all kinds of awesome recipes !