AllanThinks

Our First CSA Share

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This is the haul for our first week's garden and meat shares from Elmwood Stock Farm. Elmwood is one of two (that we know of) CSA Farms in our area. CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.

We've been talking about participating in this program for a while, wanting to do what we can to be more responsible consumers. And we found that we had been buying more of our food from local farms at the Farmer's Market.

So this year we finally signed up.

Included in our basket this week were:

Asparagus
Green Garlic
Spinach
A mixture of three lettuces
A quart of fresh strawberries
A pound of ground beef
A free-range roasting chicken

All of these are organically raised. The newsletter included in the box said they also had radishes, but they must have had limited quantities, as we didn't get any.  But that's okay.

We are very pleased with what we did receive. It was more than I expected this early in the season. 

We ate the lettuce last night, and today at lunch. We had strawberries for dessert. Tonight, Ali roasted the hen, and some of the asparagus. It was all great. We're going to eat very well this summer.

Oy

The second night of Bikram yoga wasn't any easier than the first. It kicked my ass.

But I was determined to do more tonight than I did during the first session. And I did.

Hopefully I will get to a point where I don't feel like a complete doofus.

I feel like I've been fed through a combine.

Alison and I attended our first Bikram yoga session this evening. Ninety minutes in a room where the temperature was 105ºF and the humidity was 70%. And we did all 26 yoga poses. More than once.

I didn't do them all. I wasn't able to do several of them. I'm just not flexible enough for some of them. Yet.

And then there were a couple of times when I was almost overcome by waves of nausea. The teacher knew we were beginners, and knew when to tell us to just lie still on our mats.

We've been home for about a half hour now, and I am starting to feel like I am going to live. I feel like this is going to be beneficial, and I will be back there tomorrow evening to try it again.

Cheers

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I created this shot yesterday in hopes it would cheer me up.

It didn't. I'm really down in the dumps right now. I think it is stress as much as anything. Add to that the bitterly cold, dreary weather we have been having.

And then there is the pinched nerve in my neck that is causing me severe pain in my head, neck, upper back, and right shoulder.

This hasn't happened to me in over a year. I thought the comfy mattress I bought and a new pillow acquired a few months ago, had made this kind of discomfort a thing of the past.

But I guess the stiff neck is not a product of the bedding. It is a product of stress.

I need a vacation.

How do you spell relief?

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Between a change in the weather (cold front, low pressure, and storms), and a bunch of bicycling lately, my knees are killing me. I grabbed the Advil bottle and dumped 3 liqui-gels on the counter. Yep, that's 600 mg. Before I swallowed them, I took this photo. I couldn't resist.

I'm such a geek.