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Month: August 2015
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Like Mother, Like Daughter
Usually chicks look nothing like their mothers. Their baby colors are usually different than their mother’s feathers. This little chick is the same shade of reddish brown as her mother. Will it grow up to look like it’s mother? Maybe, maybe not.
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All the News That’s Fit to Print
It’s a busy day in paradise. There is so much going on. Where to begin? Here is a condensed version of this morning’s news:
- A handful of blackberries were picked for breakfast
- A dog dug furiously when he smelled a mole in the ground
- Redwood branches welcome fresh dew on their leaves
- A new chick hatched during the night
- Corn blossoms fell like rice grains on a squash leaf
- The sweet smell of corn blooms perfumes the morning air
- Corn ears are fattening
- The morning sunbeams are playing hide-and-go-seek behind pumpkin leaves
- Onion bulbs are swelling in the sweet earth
- Cabbage heads are tightening in the garden
- Overnight, a growing cabbage head has invented fifteen new shades of green
- Poppy buds are bursting with joy at waking up with a million beads of sparkling, diamond-like dew drops
- A wasp is waking up after spending a night sleeping in a sunflower flowerhead
- A happy dog soaks up love
Don’t let the news media tell you otherwise, paradise is all around you, you can see it, you can feel it, you can smell it, you can find it, it’s everywhere.
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Signs of Fall
It’s mid August, the coolness of Fall is in the morning air, the stacks of firewood have dried, dry leaves are gathering on the grass, baby melons are swelling, champagne grapes are turning purple.
So much happens outdoors every day, it’s hard to spend time indoors. What am I missing when I’m standing at my desk doing bookwork? What are the chickens up to when I’m in the kitchen cooking? What color are the corn tassels now? Outdoors is where it all happens.
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Gentle Farming
It was Wednesday afternoon, a warm, sunny day. I don’t know who was needing a nap more, Hazel or her chicks. Snoozing next to or inside their mother’s feathers is what little chicks are meant to do. One day, some of her chicks will be doing the same with their own. This is what gentle farming is about. Not rushing things. Letting plants and animals grow at their own pace, do their own thing, and enjoy their lives.
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Babies in the Rain
For the first time in their lives, baby kohlrabi are getting a soft shower of rain drops. What do they think of the rain? Does it taste better than the well water I use to water them? A few more weeks, and the baby kohlrabi will grow up and be ready for market. Isn’t odd that you never hear about humanely grown vegetables? You can get someone to certify that you have raised your chicken, pigs, and cows humanely, though those certification standards are abysmally low. How about humanely grown produce? What would that mean to a kohlrabi? Having soil free of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides? A biologically rich environment? Rich soil full of earthworms wriggling around your roots to keep them aerated and fertilized? No heavy tractors rolling through the fields, compacting the soil and terrorizing the inhabitants? A quiet field so you can hear the songbirds? Clean air flowing through your leaves?
