Tomatoes, Freezers, and Floridian Blackberries

Today, once again, I harvested tomatoes. Even after we had given away a bunch, they filled up seven 1 1/2 gallon (I think) buckets. Seven! That's a lot of tomatoes. Last week, Rachel--the intern in charge of the tomato variety trial--turned the tomatoes into canned tomato juice. After I post here I think I'm going to look up how to make salsa . . .

Due to housing issues, I am staying by myself in a duplex for a week, which means, for the most part, I'm in charge of my own food (instead of enjoying the cooking of my hostess). I have been supplied, however, with macaroni and cheese mix, polish sausage, pineapple, bananas, tomato soup, bread, and a veritable cornucopia of fruits and veggies grown on the farm. An added surprise was a knock on my door last night from the lady that used to live in the duplex. Rhoda moved out a couple weeks ago and is still in the process of cleaning out the freezer. You might think to yourself that two weeks sounds like ample time to clean out the freezer, but this is not just a freezer compartment in the top of a fridge. No, this is a full-size freezer packed to the brim with beans, yogurt, mulberries, a whole case of frozen orange juice concentrate, and who knows what else from the farm buried deep below. Anyway, Rhoda showed up a my front door last night and asked if she could cook for me. I have a feeling that this, unfortunately, is a one-time experience. Still, I readily agreed and we sorted through the massive freezer and came up with a hodge-podge of food. We invited a summer intern, Kirsten, over and we all at together: Spicy beans and salsa, peas and (gasp) broccoli, biscuits, and to top it all off, mulberry smoothies--all from the freezer.

After we ate, we went blackberry picking! I never knew that blackberries grew in Florida, but I assure you that it does occur. There is a nature preserve a walk away from ECHO which has a large blackberry patch. We picked lots of blackberries and ate some, too. It was quite an enjoyable evening, although I had planned on just relaxing and writing to you on my blog.

Tomorrow I am going to track down the person in charge of IT at ECHO and see if he needs my help. I hear that IT at ECHO is very short-handed right now and I might be able to take care of simpler tasks that need attending to. That would be a neat experience. However, I guess I shouldn't tell him that it's been two weeks already and I still haven't been able to send e-mail from my laptop . . .