CSA starts to fly

Two weeks ago I noted what our haul from our local CSA was. I just got back with the next box -- last week was a week off for the harvest. It's a nice, but small, assortment. I got maybe a cup of raspberries (that won't last twelve hours), a few radishes, one nice kolrabi, a humongous zucchini (which is not very flavorful, but will provide bulk to stew or omelette or something), a nice bunch of onions, a small amount of chard -- also a nice amount on a week when Cathy and Kivi are out of town, a bag (maybe six ounces) of spinach and another of mixed greens and two big bags of kale. Apparently the box was supposed to have just one but they had an extra and knew from previous conversations that I like kale, so they gave it to me. Booyah!

Our new CSA is starting slowly

When we were in Jersey, we were members of a Community Supported Agriculture farm-coop that we really liked. The fact that it was a block from the Bristol-Myers Squibb campus where I worked was great too. But when we moved to Minnesota three and a half years ago, I couldn't find one that was a reasonable distance -- Rochester is too far for fresh produce!

But a couple months ago I found myself at the Department of Agriculture web pages and noticed a link to MN CSAs and in that directory, I found a link to The Farm at Prairie Oaks Institute which is on the outskirts of Belle Plaine -- the next town down 169 from Jordan! So I inquired and found that this was their first year doing CSA and Cathy and I decided to join them. Two weeks ago we got a preliminary box with some light offerings and today I picked up our second box of goodies.



There's a nice bunch of onions and cilantro and dill and good-sized baggies of mint and marjoram and a small salad worth of mixed greens (mustard, sorel, arugula and romaine) and wee, cute samples of broccoli and kale. The produce is still slow in coming, but I figure it'll soon be bursting forth from the ground. We also got a dozen eggs.

I need to figure out what to do with the dill and marjoram -- I can always dice and freeze, but I'd rather cook. Hmmm...

Minnesota XO User Group?

I'm waiting for the two XO Laptops that I ordered to arrive. The first known to the blogosphere came to Minnesota, but I was far from a first day donor -- more like tenth. I'm excited to play with them. I'm equally excited to see what others will do with theirs. And to hook up with them. With the internet, I can do that remotely but there's also good stuff that comes out of old-fashioned face to face meets. I keep seeing stuff about what seems like a big group in DC that meets face to face.

I've been poking around on the web for Minnesota XOs. I'm not seeing much, but maybe they're just not writing about it. So I decided to write this up just in case others were doing the same.

These are the three clear MN-related XO links that I've found:
http://s4xton.com/1632/my-first-experience-with-an-xo-laptop/ : I'm not even sure he's going to have one, but he's in Minneapolis.
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2007/12/12/olpc-follow-up.html : He's got the XO fame going right now and resides down Mankato way.
http://www.analoghero.com/criteria : These folks are giving an XO away to a kid. It's not clear whether they'll also be XO people themselves but they're in St. Paul.

If you're getting an XO and interested in keeping up with other Minnesotans, feel free to comment here and if there's sufficient interest we can get together.