Nothing Green To Eat

(a local eating update)

As I've been running ass over tit through crystalized molasses to rectify the imbalance in my head that is now causing me to eyeball dried up Christmas trees with the kind of panic and aggressive suspicion I normally reserve for black widows, I have been thinking a lot about all the components it takes to live a good healthy life. And I just know that any day now I'm going to go on and on about it. But not tonight.

There are invisible weights on my whole body and brain that are preventing it from moving more than one inch an hour. If I was a mime this would be my coma skit.

I wrestled the dried up Christmas tree to get the lights off and came to this conclusion:

• Whoever put the lights on this year must never be allowed to put them on again.

• I am 99% sure that it was Philip and my mom who wrapped the string of lights with no end and no beginning all around that tree as though they planned to keep them on there for the rest of our natural lives.

• Apparently I have gotten so edgy now that wrestling with Christmas lights is the only thing that can make me say "Mother #%cker" (Normally I NEVER say it because I'm a gentle fairy-person)

In spite of my leaden limbs, I managed to make a wonderful mushroom soup tonight using some left over wild rice. All local. So good. Is there another word besides "earthy" that aptly describes the mushroom's innate mushroomy-ness?

So here's what fresh vegetables I have to work with this week:

3 leeks
1/2 rancid turnip
potatoes
onions
carrots
celeriac
mushrooms

(Of that list, only potatoes, onions, and mushrooms are in ready supply at stores.)

The Brussels sprouts I bought did not store well in the garage and I had to process and freeze what was left of them. We've eaten all the chard but never got to the kale before it went bad. I ought to have just blanched and frozen it right away. There is nothing green to buy that is local right now. I have my hopes pinned on the Hillsdale Farmer's market this coming week-end. Please let someone have chard, spinach, and lettuce!!!

Wait, I do have some winter squash.

Which isn't green, but at least it isn't an earthy beige hue.

The big debate is whether or not to start making real dents in the freezer stash. Is this the hardest part of the year to get through if you're only eating local produce or is the spring the hardest part? This is what I'm trying to figure out now, before I've eaten through my whole pantry.

I'm finding that having a constant supply of fresh green food in winter is pretty important to me. Which is why this year I will make sure to plant plenty of greens in the late summer so they'll be established and producing by winter.

In spite of the scarcity greens, this whole local thing really isn't a big hardship. In case anyone was wondering.

I can't tell if my chickens are trying to play games with me or not, but it would seem that the hens are stashing their eggs in the hay where they think I won't find them. Eggs are fairly scarce in the hen house these days, but I got five of them today. All of them hidden deep in the nest.

Before I put you all to sleep with the soporific rhythm of my dulcet voice, how about I sign off and fold laundry? I hope none of you have a passive aggressive dying Christmas tree to wrangle to the ground, and if you do? May the mother #@cking force be with you.