a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: April 2016

  • Sounds of Spring

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    A fortuitous combination of country road crews and rain has created a slender garden of cascading mountain streams along Bow Hill Road. Take a few steps away from busy Bow Hill Road and you enter the calming world of a mountain stream, cascading over the rocks.

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    It’s a world almost no one sees though thousands go by every day. While I was filming the cascading waters, cars drove by every five to ten seconds. At a car every ten seconds, that’s 360 cars a day. In ten hours that’s some 3,600 cars and how many thousands of people? Do any realize how beautiful it is in the ditch?

    In the future, when cars drive themselves, you’ll have time to enjoy the beauty in the ditches. You’ll be able to get out of your car, and send it on it’s way to pick up your shopping and do your errands, while you dip your toes in the cold cascading waters of the ditch. Your car will come back in an hour with your shopping, and take you home, refreshed from listening to the sounds of spring.

    Every cascade makes it’s own sound. The size and shape of the rocks, the width of the stream, the slope of the rock, the flow of the water, all make the water sing a different pitch and volume. The water sings its way down to the valley. When the road engineers and crew were designing and building the ditch, I don’t think they were planning on making a water instrument miles long, but that’s what they accomplished. Often the most wondrous things people make are things they never intended to create.

  • A Few of the Wonders Today

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    The news on the radio, internet, and TV, is so dismal, it’s a wonder the world doesn’t stop spinning and just give up. And yet, every minute of every day, there are wonders to enjoy. The magenta screen have sprouted in the garden. Grow this plant once, let it go to seed, and you’ll never have to plant it again. It’s remarkable when you think about it. In late summer, the magenta spreen drops its tiny seeds, very tiny seeds, onto the ground. These tiny specs survive all winter just below the surface of the soil, and sprout in the spring without you having to do a thing. How do they make it all winter without being eaten or destroyed?

    Radishes

    What is more wondrous than picking radishes out of the ground? Or watching a peony flower bud swell?

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    For lunch, a basket of kale buds, you don’t find these in stores, Pepper’s egg, and radishes. The world won’t stop spinning today. Too many good things are happening.

  • How Do Your Vegetables Bloom?

    Blooming rubystreaks

    I will never need to buy rubystreak seeds again. A row of rubystreaks I let grow through the winter are in full bloom. One row will produce enough seeds to last a lifetime.

    An eyeopener of growing vegetables is seeing what they turn into when you don’t eat them. Salad greens like rubystreaks, arugula, and lettuce grow taller than my shoulder, sending up flower stalks that soar above my head. The first time I let lettuce go to flower, I was impressed with what magnificent plants they became. The radishes I let go to seed have flowerstalks shoulder high. The kale plants are up to my chest. It’s as fun watching these vegetables grow as it is to toss them in a salad.

  • Spring Snow for the Pond

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    After a snowless winter, falling cherry blossoms on the pond are the most snow the pond will see. It’s been a few years since the pond has frozen over, let alone be covered by a blanket of deep snow. Does the pond miss feeling the hard ice, the quiet a heavy snow brings? Are cherry blossoms enough to make the pond happy, or do they make it weep for a thick layer of ice topped with a blanket of snow?

  • Smile Time

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    Any day the mountain is out is a good day. When it is out, pedaling down into the valley to get the mail or deliver eggs, is smile time.

    The salmon berries are fruiting. They should be called clown berries with their frilly collars.

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    It’s a riot of colors now with so many flowers in bloom. I found a riot in the compost pile. A bit of potato has taken root. I will need to carefully transplant it and see what kind of potato spontaneously came to being in the compost bin. Maybe I’ll call it potato composita.

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    The chickens are having a riotous good time by the pond. The water is high and it’s easy for them to get to the bank and scratch and dig to their heart’s delight in the mud. They probably are able to reach frog eggs, and waterbugs, and fancy pond fare. I’ve yet to see a chicken spear a fish, but someday I might.

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