OK, so I'm back.  Our garden and our fish thankfully survived, though a bunny has demolished the lettuce and carrots and a few green bean plants.  We're harvesting plenty of peas and chard, some onions, and the first tomatoes, peppers, green beans, and zucchini are showing.  I love it!

But now I'm facing serious menu planning and cooking again for the first time in a couple weeks.  In the meantime my plan seems to be just subsisting on as much fresh fruit as I can get, I can't ever seem to get enough.

As a kid, summer was never my favorite season (Michigan with no air conditioning may have had something to do with it, and having my chore be mowing 1/3 of an acre), but I sure love all the sunshine and bounties now.

Saving some $ -- packing food on the airplane instead of buying, and filling up empty water bottles at the terminal drinking fountains.  It's hard to pack decent food with all the security restrictions, but dried mangoes, homemade trail mix, cheese sticks, jerky, and some apples or carrots seems to cover us for the most part.  We had to resort to a box of gas station doughnuts on the way home, but I'd rather spend $4 for that dozen than far, far more when my kids were starving after we boarded.  And they were actually fresh-tasting, too!