Windy Day

Wow, has it ever been windy here! And we could sure use some rain. We were supposed to get it tomorrow, but now the forecast has been changed to say no rain...

I had a full day with gardening, grocery shopping, dumpster diving, and a meeting/ work time at the community garden. And of course, I watched the season finale of LOST!

Today's dumpster haul was unbelievable at first glance--at least 25 quarts of strawberries, 20 packages of mushrooms (that looked perfect, not brown at all), 3 2-lb packages of grapes, 6 4-packs of D 'Anjou pears, 9 lbs. of apples, a small box full of limes and lemons, a bunch of celery, and one lonely package of Roma tomatoes. Of course, after my husband picked through the strawberries and grapes and took out all of the moldy ones, the size was reduced by over half. We gave away the mushrooms and spread the fruit wealth a bit among our friends (but not too much--we gotta eat!)

I then went inside Aldi and spent $38 on 3 large seedless watermelons, bananas, cucumbers, multicolored peppers, more apples, grape tomatoes, a couple of pounds of romaine (still haven't harvested any of my own lettuce), a package of frozen raspberries, and a can of chicken breast for the cat.

As we checked out, the cashier joked with us about how we are "her produce family." "Who eats all of these bananas?" she asked the girls. Of course, they were too shy to answer.

In June, I would like to accurately record how much we spend on food and how much it would cost us factoring in the price of the food we get for free out of the dumpster. Will I get that organized? We shall see.

Today's food:

8 a.m. One medium cantaloupe
9:30 a.m. 1/2 C. fresh pineapple (left from the kids' breakfast and I couldn't resist)
Noon About 2 C. red grapes
1-ish: some lamb's quarters while I was weeding in the garden
1:30 A blender soup made with a large cucumber, some red and yellow pepper, 3 roma tomatoes, a couple of stalks of celery, the juice of one lemon, and my typical mixture of onion powder, Italian seasoning, and salt
6:30 p.m. (on the run between the meeting and the work time at the garden) A green smoothie made with romaine, 3 small bananas, and 12 oz. thawed raspberries
10 p.m. A romaine salad w/ a blended salad dressing of cucumber, roma tomatoes, celery, lime juice and my typical mexican seasoning mixture of onion powder, cumin, and a dash of salt with the unusual addition of sundried tomatoes and cayenne pepper

Total: 1220 calories

Now don't even think it... Why is Greenmama eating a big salad with cayenne at 10 p.m.?!? An excellent question my friends.

Well, I'm worn out, so off to bed I go.