a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: April 2014

A Shovel Worth Having – and Made in Ohio to Boot

Good tools are indispensable when it comes to farming. And this is especially true with hand tools. A few weeks ago I found a sturdy shovel made by Bully Tools of Steubenville, Ohio, where they make all their tools. What impressed me about the shovel is that the back of the shovel head is sealed. Most shovel heads are not sealed in the back so when you use them, dirt gets clogged between the handle and the head. And if you’re dealing with any clay, they are a pain to clean.

Since the head of the Bully Tools shovel is sealed in the back, there is no place for dirt to clog, making cleaning a breeze. You can see in the photo of a regular shovel, how easy it is for dirt to build up on the back of the shovel head.

The head is made of 14 gauge steel which means it is strong. The handles are made of ash. This is a shovel that last for years. Keep workers in Ohio employed. Make your next shovel a Bully Tools shovel.

April 15, 2014
Salad Recipe – Five to Ten Minutes

It’s fresh salad season here at a man and his hoe®, and I thought I’d share a simple salad recipe, one that I make nearly every day.

Step 1: Go into the vegetable garden and fill a salad spinner with leafy greens. There’s no need to pull out an entire plant. Pinch off the leaves you want and leave the plants to keep growing and producing more leaves. Today, I’m using Siberian kale and arugula leaves.

Step 2: Find some herbs, like oregano in your rockery, and add them to the pile of fresh greens.

Step 3: Add some chives to the pile of fresh greens.

Step 4: As well as a few sprigs of mint.

Step 5: Rinse and spin the greens. Chop up the herbs.

Step 6: Pile the greens on a salad plate. Top with the chopped herbs. And finish by drizzling the salad with balsamic vinegar.

There you have it. A fresh salad more delicious than any you’ll find in a restaurant, all for just five to ten minutes of your time. Food the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

April 14, 2014
Dirt Bath

On a bright sunny day, chickens enjoy having a bath in the warm dirt. They can spend an entire hour rolling around in the dirt, and often they like to do this in small groups. This is behavior that is innate and something they seem to need to do, like pigs needing to wallow in mud.

So how do birds in these cage-free “humanely-raised” egg laying operations get to roll around in the dirt in the bright sunshine and fresh air? The next time you buy eggs, ask the grocer if the hens who laid the eggs you are buying, get to spend hours rolling around in the dirt in the afternoon sun.

April 13, 2014
Posts – Nature’s Gift

If you look around, nature often has what you need. What I need are some 10 foot posts to fence off a vegetable plot to keep the chickens out. I could go to a lumber yard and pick out some posts, but there are many young tree that need to be thinned out. They’re not perfectly straight, but they will make a distinctive looking fence that will be unique. I’ve left some of the branches to have handy hooks for hanging things.

For fun: to get red hands, strip the bark by hand.

April 13, 2014
Transformation – or Where Did the Cherry Blossoms Go?

What is this? It’s what cherry blossoms become. All those beautiful blossoms which drifted down, covering the ground like fresh snow. Now they will slowly decompose into the garden and turn into other flowers and vegetables. They don’t look like much now, but what is amazing about them is that much of their matter came out of thin air. Plants have this incredible ability to eat the air. Through photosynthesis, they can trap the carbon molecules in the air, and turn that carbon into stems, leaves and flowers. Like magic, plants can take what is invisible and turn it into exquisite things of beauty, and eventually into rich matter that nourishes all of us. Some of this matter will even end up being chicken and eggs and vegetables, and eventually us. Then as we breathe, we exhale carbon dioxide and at some point, the plants will eat that carbon dioxide, extract the carbon, and the whole cycle continues round and round.

April 13, 2014