Fleeting summer

The dutchkid starts school this week. On the one hand I’m really ready, and on the other hand I’m sorry to see summer go. I’m not sorry to see an end to the heat. I have been unbelievably whiny this year about how hot its been without air conditioning.

One of the things left on my list was to visit the u-pick farm before school started up. They just opened for the season, which seems oddly late to me, but here things just don’t grow as nicely as they do in the Midwest, that’s for sure.

However, the views can’t be beat.

We missed out last year and didn’t get there at all (it’s a little bit of a drive from us). So it’s been a couple of years since we’ve been. It’s amazing when I look back at pictures how grown up she is. She still looked so much like a toddler back then, and now? She’s such a big kid these days.

Now summer feels a little more complete. I guess I’m ready to let her be a kindergartener. Maybe.

A minute of happiness…

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Love it.

(found via the almighty Dooce).

The Share

I joined a CSA specifically for the fruit this year. I never have quite been able to justify an entire veggie share, and especially not now with it being just the dutchkid and I. But fruit? Fruit I could get behind.

It’s been sort of a bust so far… a bad year for sweet cherries here because of a late frost. We had several weeks worth of applesauce and apple cider, which the farm had wisely put up last fall just in case. But then last week I got a bunch of rhubarb, and now this week almost 3 pounds of pitted sour cherries, plus the first of the peaches. Things are looking up. Good thing too, because even from afar dh has been grumbling… “what a communist system,”…”I can’t believe you paid for fruit that you’re not getting,”… let’s just say he’s a tough sell on the idea of a CSA.

I like it, though.  I haven’t had sour cherries since I was a kid.   I like the idea that I’m helping out a local farmer and get organic produce in return.  I’m not sure why the concept escapes my dh.   I just wish he were here to drool over the cherry crisp I just made, I would make sure to put up a sign, “Communist hippies only.”