Life in the "Hen House": CSA Excitement

Have you ever thought about joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) but didn't know where to start? I have probably considered this every Spring for the last 3-4 years. This year, with all that is going on with Covid-19 and the uncertainty of the immediate future, I decided to take the leap. I was driving by Solly Brother's Farm one day and saw a sign outside advertising their CSA. The rest of my drive home was spent weighing the pros and cons of a CSA in an attempt at coming up with a way of convincing my husband that we should really spend such a large chunk of money in such an uncertain time. To my surprise, I barely started to present my case when he all of a sudden shrugged his shoulders and said, "okay". That's it?? Just ok?? I didn't have to convince him why this was a good idea?

Just to give a little bit of background, I'm a work from home mom with a lot of mental time on my hands. I probably think up a million "great ideas" every day. Only about 1-2 of them ever make it past my internal filter to actually be presented to anyone outside my cranium and even then I'm usually met with skepticism. So for him to be so on board so easily? I though for sure he was coming down with this new plague. So with his blessing, I stopped by the farm and donned my face mask to sign up. The whole process was super easy. I just gave them my name and contact information and paid for the season. Then I went home to wait for about 4 weeks.

Today is the day I've been waiting for. Today is the first pick up day of the season. Just as I was getting ready to load all the kids in the truck and drive over to pick up my glorious prize for patience, Mother Nature had a different plan. Dark grey skies, 80 mile per hour winds, and rain coming down in buckets. We decided to wait it out. Which was good because about an hour later, the sun came back out and we were able to go claim our basket of goodies.

Now, our CSA sent out this handy little reminder email this morning so that I didn't forget today was pick up day. It's like they already know me. My mind is a sieve. My phone has alarms set for approximately 15 minutes prior to literally everything that happens in my life. But I digress. In addition to the handy reminder, their email also gave me a list of everything that I could expect to find in my basket this week and 3 recipes on what to make with it. I expect to find these included lists and recipes to be extremely helpful later in the season when I am finding unidentifiable (to me) veggies that I don't know what to do with.

This was another reason why I really wanted to join a CSA this year. I don't know about you, but I am so incredibly tired of making the same meals every day. My boys are 10, 7, and 3 and I'm pretty sure they are made of 50% macaroni and 50% cheese. Ok, there may be some chocolate milk, ice cream, and chicken nuggets in there. But really, their tastebuds are so boring! I needed some variety in my life and having different fruits and veggies forced on me every week is just the motivation I was looking for. So, without further ado, I present to you CSA Basket #1:

Isn't she beautiful?

To be honest, when I was reading the email from the CSA they kept referring to the basket of produce that was coming my way, I kept thinking surely they are just calling it that to make it sound cute and fun. It has to be coming in some used cardboard box or something. But no, it really did come in this adorable market basket. Next week, we will return this basket in exchange for our new one full of goodies. To be fair, there is a lot of green in the basket this week and not all of it is fresh edible produce but it's only week one, and very early in the growing season. So what did we receive this week?

This just screams Spring!

Here is this weeks bounty, in all her glory! Kale, spinach, asparagus, strawberries, 2 geranium flowers, a freshly baked pound cake, and some homemade strawberry butter. The recipes that were provided were for Strawberry Shortcake, Easy Roasted Asparagus, and Spinach and Kale Quiche. I will post more about those recipes after we try them. Until then, check out some closeups of all these delicious treats.