What's Left After Fifty Pounds of Tomatoes

Here is a typical conversation around our house on Friday afternoons, around 4ish.
N: What are your hopes, dreams, and aspirations for the weekend?
J: I want to get the bike trailer built.
N: I would love to write a blog, and maybe do some tie-dying. And we have Kamy's birthday party on Saturday.

We agree that these goals are doable. If we take turns taking care of the kids, make the most out of nap times, and stay focused, we should end the weekend with our significant, but reasonable tasks checked off the list. I think about how nice it will be to see people's faces when I return their previously stained white clothes to them, now gloriously colorific. Jon smiles, fantasizing about realizing his long-time dream of biking from job to job, no oil consumed in the process.

Here is a typical conversation a mere 17 hours later, at the Farmer's Market.
N: Organic, local tomatoes! Fifty cents a pound!
J: But we're already so busy this weekend. How about we get a couple for sandwiches and salsa?
N: But they're beautiful! And we don't have enough sauce canned to last until next year.
J: (Catching the excitement) Should we get 20 pounds?
N: That's not enough. Bring the car around.

Which explains why we were an hour and a half late to Kamy's birthday party yesterday, and why today's expectations are more humble: clean up the kitchen from yesterday's canning episode, can the juice we squeezed from the tomatoes to use as soup stock, and catch up on laundry. That's my to-do list, anyway. I haven't asked Jon about his hopes, dreams, and aspirations, because I now want all the kid-free time selfishly to be mine. That is, if you consider washing clothes, preparing food, and scrubbing pots selfish. And, obviously, I'm blogging. But we consider these entries a valuable item in our family legacy, so it's a worthwhile task.

So what else is going on? Jubilee's favorite toys are the play kitchen and the toy farm. Jon says she's our "homestead girl." On Thursday evening, 5 days before turning nine months old, she took her first steps! This was about four months before we expected it, as we made the rookie parent mistake of assuming she'd do everything on the same time-table as her brother. She is very pleased with herself, and, of course, very cute.

Zephyr continues to entertain us with his peculiar imagination. Friday we overheard his trains complimenting each other's "party hats," and looked over to see that he had adorned each engine with one of Jubilee's hair clips. This morning he awakened with the sniffles, and explained to us that his "eyebrows were pushing the boogers out." He has also started taking a "tumble bugs" gymnastics class, thanks to the generosity of Oma and Opa. Swinging on the bars at his first class, we told him he was like a coconut. He readily agreed. The next morning at breakfast he asked, "Mommy, what's a coconut?"

Jon planted our winter garden (even though the highs are still in the 90's here...) He is in a do-it mood lately, excited to take another stab at growing mushrooms and tweak the hydroponic vegetables. And of course, build that bike work cart.

And me, well, I have now officially joined the ranks of the "underemployed." (A term Jon coined to refer to anyone who works less than the American standard of 40 hours/week.) One afternoon a week I teach a course called Language Arts Methods for education majors at the local university. The position fell into my lap when I wasn't looking, but I am enjoying it immensely. It is nice to exercise parts of my brain that had been dormant since, oh, April 2004, and I also like the buzz of being on campus. The kids and Jon seem to be holding up just fine during my absence, and I have yet to leak breastmilk while addressing my class of 26 undergrads and grads. I hope they have a slot for me next semester as well.

But I must get back to canning. I forgot to mention another encounter a the market. We saw Monroe when we were buying our tomatoes. "I have some pomegranates this week, and some more apples, too. I've started picking my neighbor's tree. I'm going to the bank. Take whatever you want." We saw how beautiful his apples looked, and decided to wait until we were ready to leave before taking any, giving paying customers a chance. Maybe a half hour later, Monroe hunted us down, hunched his shoulders, and held his palms up, a questioning look on his face. "The apples are so lovely, we wanted to give you the chance to sell them," we explained. "I closed up shop, they're yours," he said. "You can even take the buckets if you want." Fifty pounds of tomatoes have been washed, cored, blanched, peeled, simmered, blended, spiced, and canned. (I still need to label and put away the jars.) Thirty pounds of fruit await their fate.