squash, smoothies, and swimming!

I've been writing a lot about the summer growing season and the bountiful produce we've been getting from local farms, but I wanted to pause a moment and mention one other burgeoning source of these vegetables - the garden at Fed Hock!

All summer, guided by Molly Jo (recently of CFI) and Kelly (another enthusiastic gardener), the students have been learning about gardening, planting, composting, and everything that goes along with having a prosperous garden. And, fortunately, it has paid off! Not a day went by this week where a student or two didn't come in proudly toting an armful of squash, just harvested from outside. We had scarce but to mention that we wanted some kale to make kale chips with, and before we turned around, Kelly was in from the garden bearing an enormous pile of the leafy green.

As most gardeners and farmers this time of year experience, we too are experiencing a case of zucchini overabundance! Hating to be ones to look a gift horse in the mouth, we are forced to get creative to find ways to use up all of this wonderful, fresh produce. So far, we're doing all right - Wednesday's nutty zucchini bake and Thursday's zucchini fries proved to be a big hit, and naturally there was plenty of shredded zucchini in the chili.

Friday morning met with an air of excitement - it was field trip day! The long-awaited KoC trip to the Nelsonville pool was finally here. This would be an all-day field trip, so long in fact, that the kids weren't even to get off the buses in the morning, eating their breakfasts on the bus. We would pack their lunches along with them to eat at the pool. This led to a whole plethora of new logistics to figure out!

For breakfast, we pulled out more of the fluffy, fresh blueberry scones from Crumbs Bakery, and got to work making smoothies. Smoothies were a big hit last time, and Crystal from KoC provided us with disposable cups with lids - sometimes on a field trip, there are more important things than "zero waste"! We blended together organic vanilla yogurt with plenty of fruit juice and creamy Snowville milk with a whole rainbow of fruits we'd frozen over the past few weeks - peaches, bananas, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, even grapes! With serving help from the KoC VISTAs, we handed off these smoothies and a fresh scone to each student, eagerly anticipating their swim day, and off the buses went! The night before, Erin and Crystal (we divided forces - half worked late Thursday and half came in on Friday) made 65 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Crumbs honey-wheat bread to stuff in brown bags. Thursday morning, Team 1 helped assemble the other components of the lunch - applesauce cups, carrots, and homemade tortilla chips for all. We piled the lunches into a cooler, stuffed an insulated bag with several half-gallons of milk, and toted the whole lot to a waiting SUV to be fed to kids with appetites worked up by swimming!

What a perfect way to spend a hot day, and a wonderful way to start off the weekend.