every chick deservers a mother
World genebanks hold 40,000 varieties of beans. Every year I try different varieties. Two of the new ones I am trying today are Papa de Rolla, a bean from Portugal, and Zuni Shalako, a bean from Southwestern United States and Mexico. I purchased these beans at the Olympia Farmers Market in June.
It’s a good day when you can pull 9 pounds of shallots out of the ground from a 6 square foot plot. I’m getting 1½ pounds per square foot, so if I want to grow a ton of shallots, I’ll need 1,333 square feet. Round that up to 1,500 square feet or a 15 by 100 foot area.
These three young roosters are as colorful as the flowers around them. Young roosters spend most of their time together. They remind me of teenage boys who hang out together, too timid to ask girls out for a date, too insecure to be on their own. Roosters don’t come into their own until they are nearly a year old. Until they do, they seek each other’s company.
Roosters come in so many colors, I wonder if they look at each other and think, “I wish I had his feathers.”
The Stewartia is still blooming. Their flowers are refreshing on a soft summer evening.
It’s a new month and the first egg of the month is from Lucky. That’s a good way to begin a month.
July starts with a heat wave. It’s almost three in the afternoon and it is 78ºF – 25.5ºC, the hottest day so far this year. It will be even hotter before it starts to cool down. This may be our first day over 80ºF – almost 27ºC. For many readers this probably makes you laugh. Some of you live in places where it doesn’t get that cold at night. Growing up, I didn’t feel like it was a summer day unless it got over 30ºC – 86ºF.
The chickens are in the shade, the cherries are ripening fast, the lavender is in full bloom, the apples are growing, and the garlic is being whimsical. What more could I want?
