waiting and waiting...

It seems that I'm in an anxious period of waiting currently. Not Joe was informally offered a new job, and now it's been two weeks of waiting for HR at the company to send him an official offer. I'm also waiting for a lot of samples to be analyzed at another facility (although, honestly, I'm not DYING for the results to come back, because I'd then need to analyze them, and I'm already busy with work as it is).

The biggest ache I'm experiencing, however, is anticipation of the harvest season to be over & winter to set in. Don't get me wrong, I want to enjoy autumn and all its beauty and crispness. But I have been storing away food from the summer's harvests, and...I want to start using it! It's somewhat silly - obviously I CAN use it now. But this primal fear in me says, "But what if you NEED that in the winter! Use the fresh veggies now - they won't last for winter!" And it's not as if I don't have a lot of fresh vegetables. My refrigerator is literally packed full of vegetables that won't store anywhere else (unless I had a root cellar...which, being that I live in an apartment, I don't) (oh, and I guess I could can some of it, but I'd rather have fresh carrots than canned carrots, you know?).

This is thanks to the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group that I have been a part of this season. The CSA gives me a huge crate of food every week. This experience was rather a snafu. The first time I did a CSA I got a "half-share," which is supposed to feed 2 people who love vegetables - and that was way, way too much for me alone to handle. This year I found a bunch of friends who liked the idea of a CSA, so I went ahead and paid for a "full-share" - enough to feed a veggie-loving family of 4. Guess what. My pals liked the IDEA of a CSA, but they didn't actually want to participate in the paying for or consumption of the food from the CSA. So...I obviously have received a LOT more vegetables than I need. So, it's good that I picked this year to learn how to preserve food, because that was about all I could do with much of it.

I've felt like I've been in a never-ending battle with vegetables. I'd make it my goal for each Tuesday to get all of my veggies eaten so the fridge would be able to accept the new shipment that arrived that day. I kept up with it for a while, and then...well, then I learned that composting is a great way to pay back the earth for the bounty is provided to us from it. If my 10 eggplants from week 1 didn't make it to the end of the week, they'd go in the composter, and I didn't need to feel bad about it at all. Except that I'd intended to pay for the vegetable and not the compost material. Ah well.

So, PLEASE...harvest, stop! I look forward to eating my frozen and canned vegetables en masse with no guilt that I am ignoring the 10 pounds of brassica in the refrigerator! I welcome the day when I can slice open the winter squash that keeps so well in a dark, cool closet, and say, "This is the ONLY OPTION I have! No lettuce, no spinach, no late tomatoes to contend with! I shall consume this squash with no regret!" Come, winter!