The past month has held some surprises. Erin has accomplished in two weeks what it took us two years to do with our first child: completely potty-trained, wiping herself, no diaper for nap or bed, and waking up to pee at night. I don't want to spend too much time on the finer aspects of potty training, but I did want to update the impression I left with the last blog entry; that is to say, that she was only "pee-potty-trained". It's a big accomplishment for a little girl, and it deserves to be recognized. Since I don't have a baby book for her, the Internet will suffice.

Meanwhile, as many who follow my erratic Facebook status updates have noticed, we're dealing with an excess of vegetables thanks to our first "CSA" (Community Supported Agriculture) experience, plus a wildly overgrown garden and an edibly-landscaped backyard. This has forced some changes in our eating habits and the allocation of yet another corner of our garden for a compost pile. I made "Scrambled eggs with greens" for dinner tonight (CSA ingredients: eggs, chard, mustard and turnip greens; secret ingredients: cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and half-and-half) and actually watched both Alek and Erin ingest something green. Finally, my strategy of smothering nutritious food in fat and salt has succeeded! Sadly, Erik wouldn't touch it, due to the eggs, but I think he ate some of the greens I kept aside for him.

I have to say, I've come to understand the appeal of "greens". Until this year, I don't think I had ever eaten them. Then Erik planted collards, with his usual magic green thumb. Collards became the secret ingredient in everything I made for a few months: sweet potato and black bean enchiladas, vegetarian meatballs (other secret ingredient: meat), even hummus. I still don't know how to make them in a truly southern way, since I understand that requires something called "fat back", or at the very least, lots of bacon, but they have become a staple.

Now, turnips and radishes are another issue altogether. I am trying to learn how to deal with them. I learned that I can bury sliced radishes in a salad with enough dressing to make them palatable, and I actually brought a turnip for snack today. Yes, I had a turnip as a snack. It actually wasn't too bad, dipped in salad dressing - again, the fat and salt strategy is pretty reliable. Maybe I've lived a sheltered life, but I had never eaten a turnip until today. I'm not entirely sure I will eat one again, though I will bring one for lunch tomorrow and see how it goes.

We have had salad every night with dinner for about the past two weeks and we still have an excess of lettuce - part of the problem is the 12 plants of romaine growing in the garden, not that that is a huge problem or worse than any of the other problems that some of our friends are dealing with this summer, just that it grew so well that we can't possibly eat it all. I've given three whole plants away, but the darn stuff keeps growing. Greens are easy - a whole laundry basket can be cooked down to 4 ziploc bags. Yes, we know this from experience. But lettuce is rather bulky and time-consuming to eat, in terms of the calories obtained. I can now see why it is considered a "diet" food. Completely unintentionally, I've lost two pounds, and I think it's mostly from the energy that goes into chewing all that salad.

Did I mention the garlic? We planted 75 cloves earlier this year. They looked so small and innocent. Then each turned into a head of garlic. What am I supposed to do with 75 heads of garlic???

I could go on, but you get the point. Last year's investment in "Bountiful Backyards" has paid off and then some. I thought once I had conquered kohlrabi that the rest would be easy . . .