Close-Up

Close-up 1, Wellesley, MA, 26-November-2013

I had Carmi's theme "In the foreground" in my head when this opportunity presented itself. I only had my smartphone, but it was good enough. Besides, it gave me an excuse to try out the new edit-on-the-phone capabilities that came with the new phone OS (I ended up just cropping this, nothing else).

Then I tried playing with another angle on this, and ended up with what almost looks like two pictures stacked together: 

Close-up 2, Wellesley, MA, 26-November-2013

Since I couldn't decide which I liked better, I decided to share both. I'm enjoying the angles, what do you think?

Good Dirt

This spring we started getting a CSA share (community-supported agriculture). Actually it is a half-share, which is just about right for us.

Here's the routine. Every week we drive to the farm on the way home and fill one or two grocery bags with whatever they have for us that day. We then drive home and I spend the next hour (ish) washing and prepping the veggies so that they are ready-to-use throughout the week. Being a bit obsessive, I also write what we have on little sticky notes so that I can see at a glance what we have in the fridge without opening it and trying to remember what I have wrapped up in which container.

We're nearly at the end of the season; next week is our last regular pick-up. I'm gonna miss the routine.

The pick-up (most weeks) included at least one u-pick item. The farmers tell me that they usually save this for things that are just too time-intensive for them to pick for us. So over the course of the seasons we walked a quarter-mile or so into the fields to pick peas, snap peas, green beans, tomatoes, tomatillos, cherry tomatoes, dragon's tongue beans, cranberry shell beans, and purple beans (like green beans but deep purple on the outside). And every week there were flowers to cut for happy bouquets.

So I've had my feet (and sometimes hands) in the dirt every week, and happily. I never got the hang of the garden cycle here, even though I've been here since college. Somehow the lower-midwest rhythms are still in my blood and brain and I think about planting peas before the soil here has thawed. Oh, well. The CSA is a great alternative. At the end of a u-pick, I would stand up and look out over all the fields with a satisfied (and undeservedly proud) feeling. I like the way my boots feel when they are planted (so to speak) in the dirt.

I've been thinking about dirt all week because of Carmi's Thematic Photographic challenge, Let's Get Dirty. Forgot to take my camera to the farm, but thanks to modern smartphones, I had a backup in my pocket.