every chick deservers a mother
The chickens born this spring are now young adults. Some are even laying eggs. Each year, the flock takes on a new look. Do the single color ones envy the ones with splendid patterns? Or do the chickens of many colors wish they were all one color? And what will Miasa’s chickens look like as they grow? In a few months I’ll know.
Mi-asa’s 美朝 chicks hatched over the weekend. And among the six chicks which hatched is one very special chick.
The chick is Hazel’s, a turken chicken. Turkens have no neck feathers and cut quite the figure when they pose. As little chicks, they are among the cutest chicks there are. The question is, who is the father? If it is Sven, the Swedish flower chicken, the chick may grow up to be a turken with brilliant feathers.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the dress makers of the royal courts kept roosters and hens. When Sven, the Swedish Flower Chicken, holds court, he puts on a show as spectacular as Louis XIV. Sven’s tail feathers rise as elaborately as any wig Louis XIV wore.
Autumn leaves are pretty wherever they fall. Sometimes they fall on the water and float among the duckweed. It makes you wonder if they would prefer to decompose on dry land, or float about aimlessly until they sink to the bottom of the pond. If you were a leaf, where you would like to fall?
According to the old Japanese calendar, this year, November 7, is the first day of winter. The year is divided into 24 solar terms, with each term having a name. This year, November 7 through 21 is considered the beginning of winter. The next solar term from November 22 through December 6, Light Snow, is the period when snow starts falling.
For marking the season, I like the old Japanese calendar. Using the equinoxes and solstices makes the beginning of the seasons to late. The winter solstice falls on December 21 this year. By then, it seems winter has been with us for sometime. It makes more sense to use the equinoxes and solstices as the middle of the seasons, not the beginning.
It’s a beautiful start to winter here. After a furious wind and rain storm yesterday, the day started out clear and cool. A perfect way to begin winter.
Food can be beautiful before you cook and eat it. I picked a squash for a future meal or two, gathered some sage and rosemary to spice it up, and realized how beautiful it was. When you grow your own produce, there is beauty to enjoy from the shape and feel of the seed, the first leaves, the first blossoms, buddy fruit, to the day you pick it.
There’s so much beauty in growing vegetables. Cutting lettuce greens for harvest today, I had to pause to take photos of these flat lettuce. They have such an unusual growing pattern. After delivering greens today, we went into town to run errands and get haircuts. We stopped in a deli for lunch, and even though the sandwich and soup were good, the salad greens were so sad. After growing salad greens, I’ve become very critical of the greens many restaurants serve. Salad greens need to be picked that morning, and for a good salad, variety is key.
There are no pictures of swans, but this afternoon we saw our first flock of swans. On our way into town, six magnificent trumpeter swans flew overhead, not more than twenty feet off the ground. It means that winter is practically here.
These spent bean pods are ready to be reincarnated. Their lives as bean plants is now over. Over the winter they will turn into soil and be reincarnated as new vegetables. It’s amazing to think that these inedible, stiff-as-cardboard, dried pods will next summer, be crunchy carrots or supple arugula.
The garlic cloves don’t look like much, and yet as I plow through the baskets of garlic bulbs to peel and break apart, I have great expectations. Many are in the ground already, and the last of the planting will soon be over. There are machines that will do this for you. Dump a pile of garlic bulbs in one end and get garlic cloves out the other. But what is the fun in that? Pulling the bulbs apart by hand, you get to see each clove and decide if it’s one worth planting, or if it’s one you should eat this winter. At times, it seems as if the intent of automation isn’t to make life easier, it’s to separate us from a lot of good things to do and experience.
This is what approximately 800 garlic cloves look like. Next June they will look like the lovely scapes below. Amazing how a little clove turns into a two to three foot tall stalk, and a whole bulb of fresh garlic. There are very few things you can buy, that if you stick in the ground, will become something even more wonderful. Stick an iPhone in the ground this fall, and let me know if you end up with five to eight better iPhones next summer.
The fall rains have brought back water land. The ditches are flowing again after a long, dry summer. From now until next summer, the sound of rushing water will fill the air. Like many, I find the sound of flowing water comforting. Now, as I bike around, running errands, everywhere I go, I can hear the soothing sounds of water cascading over the rocks.
This isn’t a gushing, mountain stream. This is a ditch alongside a busy, country road.
The next thing to look forward to is the arrival of the swans. They should appear out of the northern sky any day now.