Bela & the bucket.

Once a week, Bela's dog food is made.

Yes - made. I'd love to take some credit here; but I can't. It's all Mike. Mike's idea, Mike's hard work.

He rounds up the best sales at the grocery store - chicken is usually the star feature (be it a breast, thigh or whole bird.) Occasionally, she'll have a ground chuck or ground turkey. Eggs often get thrown in the mix or on top every few days. The proteins are mixed with vegetables of a wide variety. This girl gets everything from sweet potatoes to okra, from lima beans to kohlrabi, from carrots to cabbage. (She has certainly benefited more than we have from the CSA we joined this year). A brown rice or barley stands in for the carbohydrate component. An apple goes diced into the mixture near the end. Then one to two herbs from Mike's indoor herb garden to garnish. All of these ingredients face their final incorporation in the red bucket.

These batches take roughly 3 hours from start to finish. I usually walk around the kitchen, verbally appreciating the smells and techniques (and time) he's putting into the excercise. I help him scoop the food into numerous rubbermaid containers for freezing. I wash the dishes that aid him.

Bela knows when this process is occurring. She watches him take out frozen meats, grab the bag of brown rice and get cooking.

She stands or lays in the kitchen for the duration of the evening, facial expression alternating between adoration and visceral desire.

When the red bucket comes out, she knows she will soon have her head in it.

For after the containers are filled and stored in the freezer, the bucket - with the  remnants inside...is placed on the floor for her. She inserts her head. She places her paw inside, so as to hold it in place as well as possible. She licks it until it appears to be so very clean that sometimes I 'forget' to wash it.