a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: January 2016

  • A Fairy Dusting of Snow

    FairyDustingA

    We woke up this morning to a fairy dusting of snow. It was still falling but the snowflakes were so fine, you needed fairy glasses to see it falling. The fine snow didn’t deter Nina from taking her little chicks out to forage. There is almost nothing that will deter a mother hen.

    FairyDustingB
    FairyDustingC
    FairyDustingD
    FairyDustingE

    This is Anna’s first snow. Hmm, she’s not sure what to make of it. One step forward, then another, she goes. If she ever raises chicks in the snow, I wonder what she’ll tell them about it. “My first snow was breast deep and …” She looks like a hen with an imaginative mind.

  • Now I Know

    FrozenEggsA

    What happens when raw eggs freeze? We have had many days of freezing nights. In the shade, the frost hasn’t melted for days, getting thicker with each passing day. On Saturday, I found an old nest where some of the hens have been laying eggs. The last time I checked that nest was five days ago and I stopped checking every day as no hens were laying eggs there.

    The hens must have been watching and noticed I wasn’t checking that nest anymore because they started laying eggs there once I stopped checking. The eggs were freezing cold and some were a number of days old.

    Hmm? Are these ice cold, frozen eggs any good? I let them thaw a day and cracked them open today. They were perfect. Now I know. If an egg stays on a nest a few days in freezing weather, it will be fine.

    FrozenEggsB

  • Dazzling Blooms in the Midwinter?

    FrostFlowersA

    You’ll find the most dazzling blooms of the year in your garden in midwinter. White starbursts of ice petals which dazzle in the morning sunlight. You never see shimmering blossoms like this in the summer. These aren’t flowers you can take indoors to enjoy. They’ll melt in your fingers before you make it to your door. You have to enjoy them outdoors in the biting cold.

    FrostFlowersB
    FrostFlowersC

  • Oh, Gold One!

    NewYearA

    The first sunrise of the New Year. How lucky to have a cloudless sky. As a boy, going down to the beach to watch the New Year sun rise above the ocean blue was a highlight of the year. The sun rises over the ocean and sets in the mountains, that was the way it was growing up. Now the sun rises over the mountains and sinks into the sea.

    NewYearC
    NewYearB
    NewYearE

    On a frosty start to the New Year, even the plastic frog is happy to see the sun. The way it sits, it sees the sunrise every morning. For years it’s watched the sun come up every day with a big smile. Every day is a good day. Every day is a good day. The trees are enthralled too. They’re lucky. They stand so tall, they bask in the glorious light a long time before the great gold one shines on me. We owe our lives to the great gold one. Without it, we would just be cold, lifeless star dust, drifting through the endless universe.

    NewYearF