Red Riding Hood Bento

This lunch has Red Riding Hood and a mushroom and butterfly, no theme, no reason. Just that the school year is winding down, and I'm realizing I am not using up my handmade bento picks fast enough.

Lovely Wheelbarrow

This is the wheelbarrow's inaugural project. This side of the driveway has filled me with despair since we moved in. Rocks wedged down into the dirt when the car drives over them, boiling hot in the summer, ugly and depressing. I won't douse the whole thing with Roundup, so weeds take hold between the rocks that are almost impossible to pull. But there is no budget for a landscaper or a a work crew, so what could we do?

We spent Saturday and Sunday digging out all the rocks by hand. They went a foot deep in some places, and were imbedded deep in the clay soil. We hacked away with spades and rakes and scooped with our hands, filled the wheelbarrow and dumped it, over and over again. D blanched when I suggested it, but he worked alongside me all weekend. He was the wheelbarrow man too, so he can hardly stand up tonight. And now this is what it looks like.

I can't express how wonderful it feels to have a stretch of rock-free soil there. We turned over the dirt and worked in bags of compost and manure and peat, until it's soft, fluffy loam for planting. I don't really like the rocks going up to the house either, but they have some surviving plantings from a previous owner, and they're not terrible. That project can wait.

I used to think about this at night before I fell asleep. The rocks all gone and a soft bed for rosebushes, or whatever we want to put there.

I raked out this bed today too, and put fresh mulch. I planted some perennials there last year, and it looks like they came back. A good raking and lawn aeration and mowing and weedeatering the edges, and the front yard should look so much better than when we moved in.

Happy Birthday Mama!

Church directory picture, Our Lady of the Annunciation, Albuquerque, NM, 1972. I love my little brother's snazzy plaid jacket! And I remember that yellow dress and how I wanted to wear it all the time. We love you Mom.

And here is today's bento.

Tilapia

I don't think R has ever seen me cook a whole fish before. The summer savory and marjoram and rosemary are big enough now to start snipping, and they should be good on Tilapia with some butter and shallot salt, white wine and lemon. I doubt I'll take a picture when it's cooked, because I'm never very good at getting dinner on the table and taking a picture at the same time.

She wasn't freaked out, but she wanted to look at it. "Take it outside so I can see it in the sun. Is that his eye? Can I touch it?" She has also never been fishing, which is a shame and I hope we can fix that this summer. She wanted to know how the fish dies, and we talked about animals giving their life so you can eat them. I hate the mealy-mouthed sound of my voice whenever we talk about that. It always sounds sanctimonious or too flippant--I never know how to talk about it, even though I've thought so much about it and it's so important. That is, in fact her nightgown in the picture--she changed clothes four times after school today and finally settled on her nightgown.

Introducing our new wheelbarrow!

We found this on Craigslist today and I could not be happier. I have big plans for this wheelbarrow. D is fixing the wheel with his toolbox. We bought the toolbox at an estate sale when we were first married. It came from an old house in Park Hill. We found it in a shed full of tools dating back 50 years. I would like to have met the man who owned those tools, because they were so lovingly collected and well-worn. Now I associate the old metal toolbox with D as he travels around and fixes things in our run-down house. Which is steadily getting less run-down! Especially now that we have a sturdy wheelbarrow. I notice in this picture that R really needs a haircut . . . she is trying to grow it long enough to "make pigtails."

And now for something completely different.

R and I have both been sick this week, so lunches have not been very photogenic. I read this morning about this owl who is afraid of heights. He fell from his nest as a baby and has been raised by a human handler. Now that they are ready to release him into the wild, they discovered that he won't fly any higher than five feet ten inches--which is exactly the height of his handler.

I wish them luck. Maybe it's because I spend a lot of time with a six year old and a puppy, but I love the look on his face: "No, I won't do it. Talk to me all you want, but I will not. It is too high."

Easter Egg Bento