Six months ago we packed up the truck with loads of home-grown veggies and canned goods and headed West. A week ago we traveled back across the highline loaded with cases of empty mason jars and crates filled with goodies we can’t get here, like astragalus tea, gluten-free pancake mix, rice noodles and Montana Coffee traders coffee.

We made it home just in time to plant with the moon cycle —  got the seeds in the ground the day before the “super moon.” The hubby put in several 10-hour days weeding, tilling and raking the beds. The loamy, sun-warmed beds looked so inviting I wanted to lay down in them and take a nap (or a least make a dirt angel, but Rick would have blown a gasket).

Now we wait.

This time of year isn’t the best for eating. The hubby finally made the hour-long trip into the grocery store and I requested some organic lettuce. He also brought home some musty-tasting green beans (I can’t think of the last time I had store-bought beans). When he told me what he paid for that ratty-ass container of slimy lettuce I decided I can live off the frozen broccoli left in the freezer from last season until the lettuce starts to pop up, or at least our friends’ lettuce appears and the farmers market starts.

Though we are experiencing “off season” eating right now, there is still plenty of abundance around, including a whole bed of wintered over “cold-kissed” carrots that are so sweet and delicious they don’t taste at all like fall carrots. We’ve also got a freezer full of venison, a few more packs of homegrown broccoli and lots of canned tomato sauce. Asparagus is starting to poke out of the ground and it won’t be long until we are eating asparagus crepes. And I just remembered . . . there’s at least a case of our canned peaches down in the root cellar — sunshine in a jar.

We are grateful for the abundance that is ours, even in times that aren’t considered abundant.