It looks like local eating in Central Jersey will be both a huge plus and a huge problem. Poultry, beef, eggs, milk products and cheese are all available on demand from within 20 miles of my front door.

None go through a factory process except the chickens. We prefer the ones from another vendor, but those are from Iowa.

We can get chickens from a local producer but I don't have the best feeling about the place. They don't have innards or other signs of processing would which make me comfortable. They seem to sell more pies and imported delicacies than their own poultry, which makes me nervous. The quail eggs I got from them were not as good as hoped either.

It will be easy enough in September, but how about December? Will I be one of those throwbacks hastily canning apples on the off-chance that we will still be able to tolerate them come May?

Are there hothouses around here that grow lemons?

There's Pennsylvania on one side, with the Amish vendors coming to us ( one middleman, no factory, often home-grown ), and Manhattan on the other ( huge ethnic population, lots of small producers and

suppliers, but using outsources for ingredients ). We have several pick your own type places, some farm markets, and some boutique style producers and processors, which are welcome in our plan if not in our budget.

I have three weeks to figure out the solution for year-rounding rationally.