the CSA is over for the season. i feel sad but also relieved. sad because i really like harvesting our vegetables, and knowing that people enjoy them. to me, there's no feeling like getting out into the field on a brisk, sunny morning like last tuesday, to pull gorgeous carrots, or beets, or salad turnips out of the ground. relieved because it's so much work, with no breaks at all. the end of last week was really hard. we had so much work to do just to get the field ready for the frost and snow storm that we heard were coming, and did come. we had to cover all the crops we did not want to lose, plus get the new greenhouse ready. on CSA days we had to pick and prep veges, and so none of this work could get done. to top it off, thursday was incredibly uncomfortable being outside. one of those cold rainy days, and we were out there all day, getting numb with cold and being wet all over. at the end of the day, we were serving customers, and whenever we had a break, i ran back to the field to harvest all the peppers before they got hit by frost that night, and ed was runnning like mad trying to cover whatever was still uncovered. we didn't even have time to cook lunch that day, but sena and aiyana made scrambled eggs for us, and warmed up some leftovers from the night before. they're amazing!

so now that the CSA is over i haven't really had time to stop yet, because of the snowstorm we had over the weekend. 7 inches of snow, and a lot of work to do to repair the damage from the storm. we lost power for a day, but that wasn't too bad. we're pretty well prepared for stuff like that, we have heat and can get water from the well if we need to. and we have lenty of food stored up. that feels really good. i really like the feeling of being self-sufficient, or as close to it as we are.

i spent all day today making pickled beets, and storing them, and i am planning to make sauerkraut tomorrow. i love both, and we have plenty of beets and cabbage right now.

when i think about it, i feel really good about the CSA. i am happy that all our major crops did well, and we had them available for people. we did our end-of-the-CSA survey, like last year, and the preliminary results were really good: 93% of respondents said they were very satisfied with the CSA, and 7% said satisfied. nobody said "so-so", or "unsatisfied", or "very unsatisfied". furthermore, 97% of respondents aid they'd be interested in joining our CSA again in 2012. there was more to the survey, and we still have to put the final results together, but so far, these stats are very encouraging and affirming for us.

so that's what's been going on. we really want to take a couple of days off, but so far there are still things that need to be done and cannot wait. like the greenhouses. ed's almost finished building the basic structure of the new one, but he has yet to build the endwalls, and we have to cover it. the old one only needs to be covered. then, i think we can take our little vacation. maybe it will be sometime next week. we'll see how it goes.

peace