My garden has a sneaky way of absconding with my tools. A few days ago, while putting up a trellis for peas and beans, a bed of greens hid a pair of pliers so well, I haven’t found them yet. But I lucked out today. While preparing a bed for planting, the folding yardstick I’d been looking for since fall showed up. It pays to weed. You never know what precious item the garden stole, the garden will decide to give back.

Five year old Cognac looks as beautiful as ever. She’s still laying beautiful eggs as dark as her neck.

The kale are blooming. Some have sent flower stalks seven feet up toward the blue sky. Seven foot tall flower stalks properly don’t come to mind when you buy kale in the produce section, but this is kale’s destiny, glorious blooms lifted high into the sky.

All is well when potatoes are growing. Potatoes are among the most beautiful of vegetables. I’m surprised city parks don’t plant beds of potatoes. Not only would the plants grace the parks with beauty and flowers, at the end of the season, city parks could have potato digging parties.

All is well when you have interesting beans to plant. These are Jacob’s Cattle Beans, so called because their color and patterns reminded New Englander’s of the Biblical story of Jacob and the spotted calf. Legend has it that they were a gift from Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine. I’ve also read that they were brought to New England from Germany. Other names for them that I’ve found are Trout bean, Anasazi bean, Aztec bean, Cave bean, and New Mexico appaloosa bean.

All is well when Cognac, our five year old Maran lays an egg. Hers is the dark one on the right. She laid an egg a few days ago too.