Share #7 -- including a special tea!

Well shucks, I spread out a share's contents and thought I had taken a photo (to annotate) -- but right now I can't find such a photo on my phone at all. Anyhow, I do have a few fun photos from our day today -- the roughly four hours that lead up to us driving off to the Wedge and looking for your lovely faces =)

Josie, after these two super-helpful kids dutifully spent two hours down at the garden with me!

Josie's main job is to keep all of our chickens used to being handled by people :) Here's Blacky and Baseball, who aren't laying yet (but damn well better be in the next month or so!!!)

Here's a funny outdoor, 'alternate' coop I made for the birds, for if/when they are feeling that their hen-house is a bit too stuffy. I first thought the ducks actually climbed in those boxes -- until Josie admitted this evening that she placed them in there :(

Everybody's share, and some optional bread, all packed up and ready to go!

Also, here are a few things worth noting about Week #7's box:

OKRA -- Gosh darn it, I thought I gave all the ones Josie picked a good 'wiggle' test, and ended up keeping out eight otherwise gorgeous pieces total for being too stiff... however, I found one in the surplus box (that we did not re-home today) to be too tough. Please be wary!

SLICING TOMATOES -- I tried to give everyone a mix of ready-to-slice and needs-to-sit-on-the-counter, smalls and larges. It did seem to be heavier on the side of unripe ones, unfortunately; that is just me trying to save them from the sunburning, slugs, cracking (due to heavy rains) and ultimately spot-rotting that has been claiming a lot of the fruit. SPECIAL TRICK: Put unripes in a brown paper bag with some overripe bananas or apples for a couple of days, and the naturally occurring ethylene gas that you are intentionally concentrating will quickly ripen the tomatoes

'GREENS BAG" -- There were three things in here: 1) lots lettuce-leaf basil (at the bottom); 2) some lettuce greens, many of which had started to bolt (=an extra bitterness that some find offensive; feel free to toss if no bueno for you); and 3) some tender lamb's quarters tops

SUMAC TEA -- A refreshing beverage that many Native American tribes traditionally made, from the sour 'berries' of the staghorn sumac bush. While the beverage can be made VERY sour, I aimed only to make a subtle version here... kind of like a half-sweetened tea, it comes out. Nice over some ice, or in the morning warmed up in the microwave / on the stove to a near-boil (ie, as a hot tea)