Month: January 2015

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Waterworld

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Most of the roosters are soaked to the bone with their wet tail feathers dragging on the ground. I had to run an errand and stopped several times to get off my bicycle and take pictures of the watery landscape. In the valley, there is water running over the roads, and many of the fields and pastures are lakes which extend to the horizon.

It may be easier to bicycle through standing water than drive through it. A bicycle won’t float away like a car. The water flows right through the spokes of a bicycle tire and there is no enclosed compartment to float away. According to the National Weather Service, many cars will float in just one foot of water, and all it takes is two feet of rushing water to wash away most vehicles including SUVs and pick-ups. As long as the water isn’t flowing too fast, a foot of water shouldn’t be too difficult to bicycle through. See Never in a Car.

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The Joy of Winter Greens

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Nothing dispels the gloom of a dark, cloudy winter day, than sprigs of fresh greens. During summer there are so many greens to eat, I feel like a cow grazing on thick pasture. But in the middle of winter, the few greens that manage to grow in the unheated hoop house are a welcome treasure. If I close my eyes and nibble on them, the sullen winter skies turn a brilliant summer blue.

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A Lengthy Childhood

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Miasa’s chicks will be two months old in a week. At seven weeks of age, they are the age many broiler chickens are headed to market, never having spent a single minute under the loving wings of their mother.

Miasa’s chicks are too big to fit under their mother any more, but they still try, and if they can’t get under her, they’ll snuggle up next to her.

Raising chicks through the cold, rainy months of November and December hasn’t been a picnic for Miasa, but she’s never stopped showering her chicks with love and care.

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Food Just Is

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Grow a variety of food, and you begin to realize that food just is. Like the air, it’s all around us. You don’t stop and think where you are going to get your next breath of air. You don’t go shopping for it. Everywhere you walk, air is all around you, and no one is charging you for it.

For most of life on earth, food is like air. It’s just there. An earthworm digging its way through the earth finds things to eat everywhere. Herons don’t go shopping for food. They go from pond to pond, field to field, finding food everywhere.

The handful of garlic I’m chopping for dinner is like that. I have a basket full of garlic left over from all the garlic I pulled this summer. It didn’t cost me a penny. It didn’t even take a lot of time and effort. Garlic is as alive as you are. Stick a clove of garlic in the ground in the fall, and next summer, you’ll have a full bulb of it.

Most of the garlic I harvested this summer, I ended up planting, but there is plenty left over to last until next summer. It’s that way with the chicken and eggs. They aren’t things to buy. They are just things that are there. The same with all the various greens in their season.

For most of humanity, food is no longer something that just is. You can grow very little food in a small apartment on the 35th floor of a tower. Most people now live in cities so dense and vast, it’s inconceivable for them to imagine living surrounded by food growing for the taking. It’s something that you have to buy, something you have to work for. It’s become the product of some company, stuff that comes wrapped in plastic, packaged in boxes or cans, it’s no longer something that is part of your surrounding environment like air.

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Happy New Year-明けましておめでとう

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2015 started with brilliant sunshine, a great way to start a new year. Early in the morning, Sven and his hen admirers are out at the edge of the property, scratching through the underbrush of a large cedar.

It’s nearly impossible to go through a day without learning something new. Maybe this is something you did not know: Chickens love bridges. A favorite bridge of the chickens here, is this bridge across the stream. It connects two of their popular hangouts.

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Throughout the day, hundreds of crossings are made by the chickens. Even on a frosty morning like today, it is in constant use. Back and forth, back and forth, it’s rare when there isn’t a chicken or two on the bridge. At times they like to pause on the bridge and watch the stream flow below. Maybe they are thankful they don’t have to get their feet wet. Who knows, this may be the busiest outdoor chicken bridge in all of chickendom.

Below, you can see King Richard parading across the bridge.

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So now, if you encounter a crossword puzzle hint that says, “What do chickens like?” See if the word “bridge” or “bridges” works.