Our First CSA Bouquet

This past Valentine's Day I got Fellow Traveler shares in a CSA, over in a neighboring county, that provides a bouquet per week during the growing season. This weekend we got our first arrangement.

And therein lies a tale...

For reasons we don't quite understand, FT recently won a free stay at a large regional casino/resort -- she was going through the mail, about to throw the postcard away, when she re-read it and thought, "Hmmmmm." So we decided we'd use this opportunity for a little getaway weekend. I took a day off. Our friend L, who loves our dogs, agreed to keep them overnight.

Somewhere between the delicious small-dishes repast at our favorite restaurant ( The Brass Cafe' ), the dogless king-size bed and my hour massage, I remembered that our first CSA bouquet was on its way to my satellite office...where I wasn't. I called; our part-time receptionist told me that my coworkers, who are usually in and out all day, were both gone for the entire day as well. Darn. Then the CSA flower gardener called. As I explained my predicament, it occurred to me: FT and I were headed to the food coop on our way home, so why couldn't Flower Lady, a fellow cooper, drop off our bouquet at the coop?

FT and I spent Friday afternoon at the reservation art gallery down the road from the resort; then we headed downtown to the food coop. En route I saw a beat-up hippie van, back seat filled with branches, passing us; I joked that that was perhaps our Flower Lady. We did our shopping at the coop, then sat outside and waited...and waited...and waited (albeit not impatiently; people-watching in a university town is always interesting). Suddenly a van came around the corner...the beat-up hippie van. It parked in front of the coop. An Indian-gauze-dress woman and numerous children spilled out of the vehicle. One of the kids was carrying a bouquet.

One of the kiddos was actually the designer of record of our bouquet. I think she did a splendid job. We are looking forward to similar creations all season long.