It's wiiiiiiiiiilting

I received my share from the farm yesterday -- which is literally picked from the garden about an hour before it is picked up.  In it were blueberries, raspberries, green beans, peas, potatoes and squash, cucumbers and a head of lettuce.

Several hours later when I went to make a salad, the cukes were on their way out.  Starting to get mushy.  And yet, a cucumber that I had purchased at a store was fine.  Which made me ask the question, how old is the store-bought cuke?  And what are they doing to it?

Every day feels like a battle against the wilt and the rot.  It is hard to juice lettuce that won't stand up!  Not to mention how nutritious is it once it is all floppy.  I went to make a caesar salad last night, and the romaine lettuce was turning into juice on its own.  The fact of the matter is, I feel like I spend each day hunting down food, so how can it go bad so quickly?  Right now I have several avocado dying, a tomato about to burst, beets that I want to eat fresh but can't seem to get to, a bit of squash that I am already sick of having to deal with and kale that is starting to go limp.

It's overwhelming and I guess the bottom line is I need the garden so I can walk out to it, pick it and stop watching it die.  But I'll never be able to grow my own avocado, so there will always be something rotting before my eyes, and I can't figure out how to stop this.  I live so far away from a decent source of decent food.  At the local Hannaford's I can hardly get 14 items or less into my cart -- because it's all disgusting.

And I wonder.  How come the organic lemons I buy at the Co-op go bad within days, while the ones I bought at Hannaford's do not?  I think they are lying.  I don't think they are organic at all.  I really don't.  And it was the farm-fresh cukes dying on the spot next to the just fine, thank you cuke from the store that made me think ... something is going on.

Because it's all about trust after all.  You have to trust that the sticker they put on produce stating that it is organic, is put on in good faith.   But then that means, in regards to a grocery store, that you are putting your faith in a corporation.  And a corporation festers on greed.  And wouldn't it be the epitomy of greed to charge someone for something and not deliver?

So unless it rots within days, it's probably been treated in some preservative along with its non-organic pals and just slapped with a sticker claiming it is organic.  Because we are, after all, just stupid consumers and we'll believe anything.

And it's impossible to tell the difference, because I tried.

It's faith, and I don't have one iota to spare for the Fockers.