Warm Potatoes

Dear Blog,

In case you were wondering, no, I haven't broken up with you. It's just that, well, it was summertime and I guess I needed a break. I had no idea how much this summer would hold for my little family and budding farmette. Life has been crazy full. Housing projects have kept my hands especially busy. I got tired of the oppressively dark fireplace brick, so while Andrew was out of town I painted it. Other projects have included painting doors that've needed painting since we moved in, ripping up yucky carpet down to the lovely hardwoods underneath (what a treat!), painting furniture, and finishing a two-years-in-the-making lap quilt for our living room.

Another great summer project has been keeping up with the sweet little garden I planted in the spring. At least I thought it would be sweet. Someone, in her excitement, planted enough seed to feed a city block, and ended up with a jungle by July. I'm not even kidding when I say that I lost a kid in the arugula greens. By the time the garden had given us it's best and gone to seed in the heat, I went to yank all the guts out (dead vines, dried tomato limbs, etc) and found a few treasures that'd been hidden in the overgrowth. Including Olivia's harmonica. Hum...wonder how THAT got there?! And no, that is not a confession. It must've been left behind when we retrieved her from the arugula.

The gardens past, present, and even the one that's underway, have been been ample fodder for spiritual analogies. Preparing the soil, using good seed, regular watering, pulling weeds, harvesting the fruit...it's all been super good thought material. But while I'm discussing gardening, I'll choose this little line to throw out that in addition to some yummy greens, and assorted veggies, this garden brought our christening as watermelon farmers. At least that's how it felt when our watermelon vines dried up, leaving us to collect what added up to be a whole wheelbarrow of watermelons. They were pretty tasty, too!

Harvesting our produce was a sweet reward; especially knowing it'd been watered with a bit of our sweat (or just neveryoumind that slightly gross thought). I will readily own up to being a total nerd when it came to gathering our produce. But this will come as no surprise to some. To this day, my siblings harass me about a childhood confession of mine. Fresh from reading the Little House on the Prairie series, I confessed to feeling like a pioneer girl when I found delight in my dinner of a simple warm potato, as walked down the road by myself to my kid brother's t-ball games. I was young. It was fall. The air was crisp. And something about walking somewhere by myself with a warm potato gave me a feeling of nostalgia. In that moment, I was Laura Ingalls. Until I shared my euphoria with my siblings. Which was perhaps one of the worst decisions I've ever made. So, as I'm unable to live it down, why not share it with the world on my blog?!

I'd like to say I've matured, but I cannot. I can still feel the warmth of that potato in my hand as I crossed over the grassy levee into the t-ball fields. The delight over my garden as an adult is no less silly real. I was in such raptures over all the bounty, that I took pictures of our produce and posted them on Facebook. Yes. Pictures of tomatoes and green beans such. My apologies to any offended by my over-exuberance. *sigh* Maybe there's an herb or oil for this kind of behavior? Sadly, I believe I may have even taxed the sentiments of my husband, when several times a week during dinner I would exclaim: "Can you believe we grew that?!, WE GREW THIS! AND WE'RE EATING IT!!!. I'd usually ask just as he'd taken a bite, so he was mostly excused from responding. Other times he'd be kind enough to match my happiness and offer a: "Yeah honey...it's awesome!"

Just a warning to anyone near and dear, but especially to my siblings: The summer garden has one bit of produce left to harvest.
Yes.
You guessed it.
Potatoes.
I hereby relinquish any self control over any jubilation, texts, phone calls, or photos that may be made, taken, or shared if this crop comes to fruition. Please consider yourselves warned, and prepared to satisfy my need for your mutual excitement. Because if you do, I might share our sweet potatoes. Maybe.

I'm off to Google the proper sweet potato harvesting time, but will be sure to keep in touch a little better in the coming months.

Farewell to summer, and much love from your warm potato loving friend,
Jenna