Return from Vacation

Here's what happens when you go away for a few weeks. Our house sitter managed to harvest most of the zucchini before they got out of hand but when we returned we found one monster zuc that had escaped detection. The monster zuc is just under 2 feet long and 18" in circumference.

Yellow onions also came up. We found 8 harvested onions in our refrigerator. There are more in the garden ready for picking.

We completely missed the apricots. They were all picked and waiting for us. They were a bit old but still tasted much better than the tasteless ones you get in the supermarkets.

One bell pepper was ready and more are on the way. The peach tree and the tomato plants are loaded but not yet ripe.

Last night's dinner featured all home-grown roasted vegetables: onions, zucchini, and bell pepper.

BFZ

Here's what happens when you don't check your zucchini plant on a daily basis. Harvested this 16" baby yesterday. There was another slightly smaller one that got picked as well. Looks like it's time for zucchini bread.

Strange year for produce this year as the temperatures have fluctuated. One week mild and overcast; the next week hot. I had to cut off and toss some early mutant zucchini that were just not forming into proper vegetables. I assume not enough sunshine. But now that it is warmer and sunnier we're starting to get normal zucchs.

Think Inside the Box

Our local newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, ran an interesting article today on the growth of Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA). We've been receiving a CSA box from Farm Fresh to You for the last number of months. It seems that the number of CSAs is growing rapidly. When we began the search for a CSA last year there were just a small handful of choices. Now there are more than 20 CSAs that deliver to the Bay Area.

Farm Fresh to You has seen...

...weekly deliveries shoot up by 1,000 in the last eight months, increasing from 500 customers in 2003 to 3,000 today.

The article goes on to talk about the impact of Michael Pollan's recent books, which describe our current food system, as a contributer to the increase in CSA subscribers.

With CSAs, customers have a direct relationship with the grower, who benefits from higher profit margins and market stability - the only way many small farms can compete.

Indeed, each delivery we get includes a letter from Thaddeus giving us an update on the farm--both good news and bad. Plus each letter includes recipes that include ingredients in that week's box.

Since most Northern California CSAs run year-round, farmers also can offer employees steady labor and benefits that are unheard of in California agribusiness.

Fireplace Complete

Today the mantel and hearth were installed. It took about two hours to get everything installed and cleaned up. It looks great. The black granite looks almost exactly like the counter top. This is basically it. We're done! It doesn't feel like it!

We have to have the baseboards touched up and painted but that's pretty minor. Our designer now wants to bring in a photographer to shoot the final product. I told her we need to rehang some artwork on the walls but we'd be ready soon.

This last Sunday we put the fireplace to work. It was a blustery day and we were sitting around reading the Sunday paper. The furnace was on but it was one of those days where it was hard to break the chill. So I kicked on the fireplace and it warmed up the living room to a toasty temperature.

Houston, We Had a Problem

Our stone/tile guy finally made it back to the house after dealing with some family health issues. He spent one day prepping the fireplace for the stone and another day getting the stone up. We got the fireplace back in its place but still slightly out from the stone wall.

Later that evening I went to push it back with the facade back into the its niche. But discovered that I had gone back as far as I could and it was still 2 inches out too far. Yikes! Lots of phone calls and excitement followed.

Our contractor Joel came over the next day and we pulled the fireplace out again. He brought in a pneumatic chisel and chipped away enough of the original brick for us to be able to slide the fireplace back where it should be. A fine layer of dust was everywhere but in the end it was a very small price to pay compared to what it could have been. He also met with the county the following day to get the final sign offs on our building permit. So we're done as far as the county is concerned.

The black granite hearth and mantel is being fabricated right now. Once they are in we will be done. Well, almost....

Why Bother?

Michael Pollan wrote an editorial recently in the New York Times entitled "Why Bother?" which addresses the basic question of "Is eating local or walking to work really going to reduce my carbon footprint?" He raises the question that for every effort we make here is it offset by someone else on the planet.

He argues that it's easy to be overwhelmed by the statistics and get into a feeling of helplessness. He says that "cheap energy" and "specialization" have given us global warming and fostered a feeling of not being able to provide for ourselves. Which brings us to the idea of the local or backyard garden and growing your own food and breaking down the feeling that food must be provided by others.

Pollan writes:

"But there are sweeter reasons to plant that garden, to bother. At least in this one corner of your yard and life, you will have begun to heal the split between what you think and what you do, to commingle your identities as consumer and producer and citizen.

Chances are, your garden will re-engage you with your neighbors, for you will have produce to give away and the need to borrow their tools.

The single greatest lesson the garden teaches is that our relationship to the planet need not be zero-sum, and that as long as the sun still shines and people still can plan and plant, think and do, we can, if we bother to try, find ways to provide for ourselves without diminishing the world."

Go plant that garden.

Beginning of the End?

Our tile/stone guy came back this week. He was on another job and also had to deal with family members with medical issues. All he had left to do was the stone on the fireplace and it's not like we really need the fireplace right now. So as long as we had our working kitchen an ugly fireplace was not the end of the world.

So he was back in on Tuesday and he did some cement prep work. Today he put up most of the stone tile. Tomorrow he will grout and he will hopefully help me get the fireplace back into the box and get it hooked to gas and electricity.

The hearth on the ground and the mantel will be honed black granite. We got an orphan slab at a good price and they will come in next week to measure. So hopefully the fireplace will be completed just in time for summer!