every chick deservers a mother
One of the hoop houses is loaded with blooming arugula. I had a patch of arugula which overwintered, and it is now in full bloom. Each time I’d pass the hoop house, I’d smell an intriguing, minty, spicy fragrance. It’s the heavenly aroma of arugula blossoms. The fragrance is minty with hints of cinnamon and allspice. Next time you want to compliment someone, tell them they are as refreshing as arugula blossoms.
It’s amazing how much power invisible things have. I started a new compost bin yesterday. Using a 16 foot long by 4 foot wide piece of cattle fencing, I rolled it into a ring 4.5 feet across. I had to wrap it in fine hardware cloth to keep the chickens out. I added one wheelbarrow of poultry bedding, and by the time I returned with a second wheelbarrow, the compost bit was full of chickens. Chickens are great at turning and tearing apart compost piles. They aren’t welcome when you are starting a compost pile. Once I had the compost bin chicken-safe, I filled it with:
The center of the compost was 60ºF when I put it all together yesterday afternoon. This morning it was 80ºF. I can’t see them, but trillions of microscopic creatures are having a feast, gorging themselves and generating excess heat from dancing through the night. May they party, eat, drink, and dance for a long time.
Last year, I first picked asparagus on April 30. In 2012 it was April 26. Having asparagus on April 18 is early. Asparagus picked while you prepare your lunch or dinner doesn’t need to be cooked. It has a fresh, sweet, green taste eaten raw.
Nijihime’s chicks hatched on Thursday. I’ve had many hens hatch chicks over the years, but it’s always a pleasant surprise when I first see a chick peeping out from under its mother’s feathers. I was expecting her chicks to appear on Friday, so seeing their curious faces Thursday afternoon caught me off guard.
Along with fresh greens and eggs, there is the first peony of the year. Peonies in April, way up here! When have peonies ever bloomed in April this far north? Ten, twenty years from now, will they be blooming in March or even February?
Seven years ago on April 20, 2008, a late spring snow planted snowcaps on our tulips. The winter of 2008-2009 was brutal, with snow falling every day from December into March. Even our well froze and we survived by melting snow for several weeks. Such winters seems impossible any more. If the climate has changed this drastically in such a short time, what will it look like in another decade or two?
Jacqueline’s modiste went for flair when she designed Jacqueline’s comb. A little bit more, and she wouldn’t be able to see out of her left eye. One of the reasons chickens have a comb is to help cool their bodies in hot weather. Blood circulates through the comb and cools. With her big, flowing comb, Jacqueline is prepared to voyage up the Nile and cross the Sahara.
Here’s Skunky and its four siblings taking a break on a log. Their mother is right by them off to the right. Watching Skunky grow is a so much fun. It’s impossible not to smile when Skunky greets my eye. A special treat today was seeing Skunky hop on its mother’s back (scroll down to the last picture). Little chicks do that a lot. They are excellent hoppers. Hopping higher than their height is no big deal. What if human babies could hop higher than their height? Baby proofing a house would be next to impossible.
This is Kuma-Hime 熊姫 or Bear Princess. I call her that because she reminds me of a bear. A hen with the face of a bear and she lays a green egg. Reality is more whimsical than fairy tales.
“Once upon a time, there lived a hen with the face of a bear. One spring, just as the apple blossoms were opening, and purple-green spikes of hostas were shooting out of the ground, the bear-faced hen laid an egg as green as fine turquoise.” Sounds like the start of fantastical fairy tale. And yet, it’s what happened here today. It’s like I’m living in a fairy tale. We all are, if we look close enough at what is happening around us.
We all have plans for the day, a schedule of things to accomplish, people to call, emails to send, calendar items to do. But it’s the unexpected things that make life. This morning there was Lucky, waiting for me to drop something in the compost bin. Dew drops on the peony leaves. The flutter of cherry blossoms in the morning breeze. Stumbling on a queue of hens waiting to use a nest. Looking up at midday and seeing a hint of summer in the sky. Running into Buttercup in the evening as she led her chicks to the chicken yard for the night. And finding an egg with a nipple. Now, that was very unexpected. It’s the unexpected things that make life.
Cattails, ferns, comfrey, there are so many wonderful plants shooting out of the ground. If it weren’t for the frequent spring rains, none of them would flourish.
I’ve recently learned about Dr. Elaine Ingham, a fascinating microbiologist. A quote of hers I like is: “If we as human beings are to continue to live on this planet we have to stop destroying her.” In this video, The Roots of your Profits, she describes the importance of root biology for growing healthy plants.
Most of the sugars plants create from absorbing sunlight through their leaves, they send down into their roots and into the soil to feed colonies of bacteria. The bacteria attract a variety of predators, and in the process of consuming the bacteria, they leave behind nutrients right at the plants roots, which the plants slurp up. It’s an ingenious method, but is easily destroyed when fungicides, herbicides, and pesticides are used. The video is an hour and a half long, but fascinating.
