Month: August 2014

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Little Helpers

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I have plenty of little helpers eager to lend their feet as I clear land for new fencing. These five week old chicks are very curious as to what I am doing. They’ve made the connection that my clearing land means plenty of bugs and earthworms to eat. Their mother is ever vigilant. A mother hen invests so much time and energy raising chicks, I wonder what they feel when their brood is finally raised and on their own. Do they feel a sense of accomplishment?

Two days ago when I heard an eagle cry, I went into the field where I knew she was, to make sure she was safe. I found her but none of her chicks. She had told them to spread out and hide in the grass. They were so well hidden, I almost stepped on one. While they hid, I chased the eagle off. Once it had flown away, I went back to check on the mother and her chicks. One by one the chicks popped out of the grass they were hiding under, and I herded the mother and chicks out of the field.

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Chickens have tiny brains. There is no denying that. But they aren’t small robots with no feelings. They feel joy, exhilaration, angst, fear, rage, jealousy, a rich spectrum of emotions. They deserve to be treated with great respect and love.

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Softening the Edges

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Ever notice when you cut raw potatoes how sharp the edges are? If you’re cooking for someone you love, take a minute or two to do something about those edges. Do you really want to serve them sharp-edged potatoes? Before cooking them, it’s easy to soften the edges with a peeler. Just run the peeler over the cut edges. With the edges softened, the potatoes will be easier to eat once they are cooked.

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With their edges softened, the potato pieces will look more appetizing in dishes like potato salad, curry rice, and niku-jyaga 肉じゃが.

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What to do with trimmed off edges? Toss them in a salad, put them in soup, mince them and use them to thicken stews, or let the chickens have them along with the other scraps you have for them. They’ll turn them into wonderful eggs.

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Animal Love

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These are Woody (the white cat, 15 years old) and Rusty (the orange cat, 9 years old). Nine summers ago, Woody lost his sister, Winnie. She died suddenly from cardiomyopathy. He was so depressed afterwards that it was clear he needed another cat to be with. We brought little Rusty home from The N.O.A.H. Center for him. Rusty was a feral kitten who was rescued by the center. It took just a few days for Woody and Rusty to become best of friends. Below are some pictures from 2005 soon after we brought Rusty home.

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Love and companionship is a basic need of many animals, not just people. It’s impossible to farm without love. It’s like a fundamental nutrient which plants and animals won’t thrive without.

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Out of the Garden Today – August 21, 2014

LeeksCut

The smell of a leek, pulled out of the ground just a few minutes before chopping, is intense. And since I have the whole leek to work with, not just the parts the grocer thought I should have, I can play with the long leaves. Draped over the kitchen sink, they look like the tentacles of a sea creature crawling out of the deep, in search of prey.

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Is She or Isn’t She?

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The last few days, Lucky has acted like she is going broody. She was sitting on her nest all afternoon so there is a good chance she is ready to to incubate eggs. Lucky is a special hen. When she was a chick, she suffered an injury on the back of her head and had to be kept away from her siblings and mother. She beeped and beeped and beeped for them. To this day, she has a bald spot on the back of her head which gives her a distinctive look.

If she has gone broody, she’ll be able to have that wonderful, warm family experience she missed as a child. She has a very outgoing personality and is one of the first hens to come running when I dig in the gardens.

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Planning Ahead 400~500 Years

When it comes to vegetable farming, success requires planning. To have lettuce or cabbage or cucumbers ready for sale on a given date, you need to plant them two, three, four months in advance in sufficient quantities.

There is also longer term planning. Each year you need to rotate your vegetable beds so that you don’t plant the same thing in the same bed. Some vegetables need more rotation time than others, so you need to think two, three, four, even five years in advance where you are going to plant what.

However, most vegetable farmers aren’t thinking about what their vegetable plots or farming needs are going to be 400 years from now. But those who look after Kiyomizu-dera (clear water or pure water temple) in Kyoto, are planning what the temple will need 400 to 500 years from now.

The temple was founded in 798 and in 1629 there was a great fire which destroyed the temple. It was rebuilt soon after. The current temple was constructed in 1633. The main part of the temple is built on the side of the hill and as you can see in the photos below, it is supported by numerous tall pillars made from massive zelkova trees, felled when they were hundreds of years old.

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The temple is in the midst of a grand restoration project. During the restoration process, sections of the temple are painstakingly taken apart, the wood examined to see which sections need to be replaced, and which sections can still be used. When the restoration project is completed, the pillars supporting the temple should last hundreds of years more. However, at some point, the pillars will need to be replaced.

There are 139 zelkova tree pillars in the temple. To replace them requires trees that are 400 to 500 years old, but finding such old lumber these days is difficult. So to make sure there are plenty of 400 to 500 year old zelkova trees in the future, according to an interview in 2006 with then head Buddhist priest of the temple, Seihan Mori, the temple has planted groves of zelkova trees on its own land. Mr. Mori said, “By the time the trees have grown 400 years, we will all be dead. However, we want to die, knowing that we have made sure there will be trees for the temple in the future.” Now that is planning ahead.

How are we living so that 400 to 500 years from now, our great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will have a world as beautiful as the one we live in now? Much of what we do, seems hell-bent on making sure nothing is left in a few decades.

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Late Summer – Expected and Unexpected Wonders

BlackBerries

If you keep your eyes open, life can be a wonderful mix of the expected and the unexpected. But you have to put your mobile phones away (maybe lock them up for a day or two) and actually look at things as you walk about outdoors. In late summer in the Skagit valley you expect to be able to pick blackberries by the handful. You not only expect it, you look forward to it.

What you don’t expect to see in August are wisteria blossoms. Wisteria bloom profusely in spring. And yet, the other day I happened to see a few blossoms on one of the wisteria vines. What a pleasant surprise. Maybe someday the blackberries will surprise me and have a handful of ripe berries in May.

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Do Chickens Count?

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Do chickens count? The mother hens seem to be able to count rather well. While they herd their flock of chicks around, they are keenly aware if all of the chicks are present. If a chick or two or three are missing, they will go looking for them. Or if they are leading their chicks on to a new place and there are stragglers, they will go back and fetch them.

So the mother hens have a concept of “all my chicks are here” or “some of my chicks are missing”. Whether they count or not, who knows. But they certainly know if all of their chicks are present or not.

In his New York Times article Are Chicks Brighter Than Babies? from 2013, Nicholas Kristof writes:

For starters, hens can count — at least to six. They can be taught that food is in the sixth hole from the left and they will go straight to it. Even chicks can do basic arithmetic, so that if you shuffle five items in a shell game, they mentally keep track of additions and subtractions and choose the area with the higher number of items. In a number of such tests, chicks do better than toddlers.

I’ve had hens raise as many as 12 chicks, and they keep track of every single one, so perhaps hens can count up to at least 12.

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Feather Art

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Chickens come in an endless varieties of colors and patterns. Your image of a chicken might be that of a plain white or reddish brown bird, but they come in a kaleidoscope of brilliant colors and amazing patterns. These feathers are the back of a Sven, a Swedish Flower Chicken rooster.

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And the colors and patterns from some of the other chickens. If you need inspiration for a design, look at some chickens.

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Green Nests

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Hens like to lay eggs in soft, quiet nests. Straw and hay make nice bedding for nests. This time of year, there is an endless supply of tall, green grass. I cleaned out three of the nests and filled them with freshly cut grass to see if the hens would like it as a bedding material.

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They aren’t filing any complaints with the management. And their eggs look really fresh laid on green grass.

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I’m not surprised. Back in 2010, Sunflower made a nest in tall grass in the backyard behind the propane tank. Chickens have an affinity for thick grasses and brush. It makes you wonder if instinct has embedded in their little brains, images of green grass which they long for, even if they are born and raised in crowded broiler sheds.

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Chickens know by instinct to run for cover if they see any large bird in the sky. They will go running for shelter even if a harmless heron flies low overhead. Somewhere in their brains, is the instinctual knowledge that big things flying overhead are not good. Perhaps millions of years of evolution has imprinted images of good things as well as scary things.