Struggling to keep up

Lately it feels like what little time off I have is long since spoken for. Prepping veggies from the co-op share, running the cat to the vet, keeping up with reading for the library book club (thank goodness I have August off from that), epic mountains of laundry--all of that plus the heat (omg, the HEAT and HUMIDITY!) makes for not a whole lot of sewing.

This weekend, I did, however, get a few things done for the girls of the Beehive.


June was Amy's month, and she mailed out Kona Ash plus scraps in red, orange, yellow and sour green to make -, + and = for her "All things equal" picnic quilt for her and her hubby. This was a lot of fun, and I loved her fabrics. The block is 12.5" to be finished at 12".

Andi was so excited about her Beehive month (July) that most of us, even overseas, got her fabrics this past week. She sent out green strips for the centers, lots of red, pink, green, purple and black/white scraps for some string block action. I made 5 x 6.5" blocks for her:




It should come as no surprise, if you've read my block, that I had no problem cranking these little cuties out and could have kept going for days. In fact, it sparked me back up to make some more of my blue string blocks, which have been sitting to the side (all 19 of them) as I try to figure out what I want to do with them...

Something a little different

This year, the madman and I (well mostly I) made the decision to join up for a full share at the local CSA co-op, Stone Gardens Farm. The local farmers' market is only open on the afternoon of the day that I work late, so I never get to go. And while the madman has made the occasional attempt, he finds it so overwhelming, he normally leaves with like 2 cucumbers and that's it.

So yeah, if I wanted to eat local this growing season (and I do), it was going to be c/o the lovely folks at Stone Gardens. And yesterday was our first pick-up!



Holy cow, that's a LOT of greeny goodness! It's been much warmer than normal here in the Northeast this spring, so the growing season is off to a booming start. We got 3 ginormous heads of lettuce (Romaine, Boston and red leaf), a head of escarole (which was made into white bean and escarole soup this morning, and will be frozen), 3 bunches of radishes, 3 heads of bok choy, 2 bunches of scallions, a bunch of salad turnips (small, crisp and almost radishy), and a bag of Asian Mix baby salad greens. Whoa. Can we say, salad for dinner?



And since the weather has been so warm, a neighboring farm had a bumper crop of strawberries, which they were giving away free at the farm stand to drum up business. So dessert last night and breakfast this morning was made of these delicious babies...



Delish! These were, by far, the most amazing strawberries I've had since my mom gave up her strawberry patch about 25 years ago. These had never seen the inside of a fridge, they were so sweet and juicy. Amazing.

Can't wait to see what next week brings! In the meantime, time for more salad!