Wednesdays are the best day in Davis

Because it's the Farmer's Market Day. It's still very early in the season, but the market is loaded down with plants on flats to be grown in gardens and a few early treats: mostly rhubarb and garlic scapes.

We hit the Red River Rock meat stand. They sell organic grass-fed beef and are where I get my meat from in the summer. (For special occassions during the winter, I sometimes order. They deliver any cut over $20.) They also have, on some weeks, lamb and May and I bought a pound of lamb loin chops from Kim. We'll have them for dinner Thursday night -- after they defrost.

I'd planned on getting some asparagus for a spring pistou, but apparently Hadley isn't having the same warm spring we are and no "Sparrow Grass" is to be had for another week or three. Instead we'll have sweet pea soup to go with the lamb chops.

There was rhubarb and, as Christopher is surpassingly fond of rhubarb, we'll be having it for dessert. I like to stew it up with just a tiny bit of sugar and serve it with whipped cream as a fool, which is like a pie without crust.

To add to the fun, when all three of us went out for a post-prandial walk, the Commonwealth Morris Dancers were doing a demo in the square. I don't understand Morris dancers -- why people would strap bells to their shins and wave hankies in a rhythmic fashion while whacking about with sticks is a mystery to me -- but I'm deeply glad that they exist. The world needs people who are willing and even eager to be made to look silly to keep up a tradition.

The hats, on the other hand....

Also, we picked up a book on special order at Porte Sq. books. The Poo Bomb was recommended by Kaja Foglio on he Girl Genius blog. It's a geek guy's take on the pleasures, or lack thereof, of the first year of his daughter's life. It's sharply funny and very honest in a way no other book I've ever read has been -- it admits that the first year or so of childhood is no fun for the parents and that it's just a stage most of us slog through (full of poop and spit-up and sleepless nights and mind-numbing boredom punctuated by gut-wrenching terror) to get to the fun part of parenthood.

Since this is a mommy blog I probably oughtn't say that, and I suspect all you grandmothers are howling in protest that you loved having infants. I suspect that there are people who do love taking care of infants but I suspect they are as rare as people who actually enjoyed high school. (And those, despite the "these are the best days of your life" mythos, are few and far between in my rememberance.)

Though I have to admit that people who love taking care of infants are like Morris Dancers to me. I don't understand them, but I'm happy they exist.