every chick deservers a mother
This is how we want their kennel to look.
This is how they want their kennel to look. Dogs do a great job washing dishes. Did you know dogs love pre-washing dishes? They lick them so clean, you’re tempted to put them back into the cupboard without washing or running them through the dishwasher. But, dogs are hopeless when it comes to house cleaning. The messier the better. That’s their preference.
It’s chilly and the sun takes its time poking above the forest. It was 8:40 in the morning when I took this photo of Niji-himi 虹姫 and Scarlet, two mothers side by side, waiting on the grass for the sun to appear. Scarlet’s chicks are staying warm underneath her. Chickens worship the sun. Morning sunlight is their coffee. Paradise for them is rain at night, sunshine all day.
The white flower bean harvest is in full swing. Every day there is another pound or two of beans ready for picking.
The warm, sunny afternoon has the bees buzzing around the sunflowers, and the red corn burning brightly. I’m dying to see what these ears are going to look like when they are ready. The whole corn stalks are a dark maroon.
And this poor little chick. This morning in the mad dash to get outdoors, it ended up with the wrong mother and siblings. It did all right, keeping up with the much bigger chicks of this other mother. They are several weeks older. If I could see his real mother, I’d snatch it away and put it with her, but she is way off in the thick brush somewhere. Maybe it will sort it out tomorrow.
With Bow Little Market closed for the season, this is the first Thursday in a long time that we’re at home. It was a great season. One of the treasures I picked up this summer at the market was this wool hat made by Mica Jensen of Kittynitz. I needed a new hat for winter, and this one with ear flaps is supper warm, and keeps my head dry when it is drizzling. While trying it on, I got to talk to her about her life in Germany and my ancestors from Switzerland, and how one of my great-great grandfathers, John Geiger, up and left his beautiful farm in the Jura Mountains for rural Ohio because a tavern opened nearby and he did not want his children growing up so close to drinking and dancing. Somethings people do are unforgivable. I have yet to forgive John Geiger for leaving Switzerland. If he had stayed, I might be herding cows on that beautiful pasture up in the Jura Mountains. If there had been Facebook back then, he would have seen that there is just as much drinking and dancing in Ohio, and that moving was pointless.
When you buy an article of clothing at a huge store, you have no idea who made it. There is no connection to the hands which toiled to make you that item you wear. This disconnect between the items you use every day and the people who made them for you is a recent phenomenon. Hundreds of years ago, nearly everything you wore and used was made by someone who lived nearby. You knew the person who cobbled your shoes. You probably met them every day. You knew the hands that sewed your clothes. You knew the expressions of the person who made your furniture, the laughter of the person who threw the clay pots you ate out of every day. You probably even knew the sheep who provided you the wool that kept you warm. You were reminded every day of the importance of all the people, animals, and plants around you, and how working and living together, you sustained each other.
All these connections are gone in our busy modern lives. We have no idea who bakes our bread, sews our clothes, grows our food, and many fewer chances to say “Thank you” directly to the people whose hands enrich our lives.
I was in the cabin making tofu yesterday on a warm, sunny, early fall day. Outside, two month old chicks were chirping in the brush. I couldn’t see them, but I could see the comfrey leaves shaking as they hunted and sang. Their chirps are so melodic that young chicks sound like a flock of song birds. I listened to their happy songs as I squeezed warm soy milk to make tofu.
Fall is a great time for tofu, especially if you can get it fresh and warm out of the press. This is when tofu tastes the best, before it is chilled. I should call this virgin tofu. If you want warm, virgin tofu, let me know. I can schedule it so that I take it out of the press when you arrive.
The state requires that I chill the tofu down to 70ºF (21ºC) within two hours. It comes out of the press very warm, around 160ºC (71ºC). I did a test yesterday, and it was down to 68ºF (20ºC) within two hours, and down to 52º (11ºC) within four. The state says it should be down to 41ºF (5ºC) within six. This is to ensure that the tofu stays safe to eat. This week I’ll be chilling the tofu in ice water to see if I can get it down to 41ºF (5ºC) quickly.
These state requirements assume that no one is eating fresh, hot tofu, right out of the press, which is how it should really be eaten. The assumption is that most people will be eating days old tofu they pick up in a supermarket. When you pick up tofu in a store, you have no idea when it was made. Which explains why so many people are so sad in this modern, convenient world. They aren’t eating fresh tofu. No wonder they’re sad.
When I was a child in our small town in Japan, the local tofu makers would get up at four in the morning to make that morning’s tofu. Then they would bicycle around the neighborhoods, blowing a soft horn, to let you know they were nearby so you could buy your morning tofu. It’s not a sound you hear in many neighborhoods anymore. You can see what this was like in the video below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1IG1xKK5c&w=854&h=480]
The cool, fall weather doesn’t slow down the baby chicks. These days, more often than not, they’re running ahead of their mother. They are two weeks old. Very few two week old chicks get to run as fast as they want over grass and through the woods.
While weeding this afternoon, I found a kohlrabi with two kohlrabi on a single stem. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen this. Usually, kohlrabi grow vertically and develop one kohlrabi near the base of their stem, like in the picture below. Somehow, this kohlrabi fell over and sent up several shoots. Vegetables have as much personality as people. Plant a hundred kohlrabi and you’ll get a hundred different kohlrabi. Many will be similar, but look closely, and each one is unique, with some far more unique than others.
While weeding I gleaned some of the onions I haven’t picked yet. These were the stragglers, the ones not pretty enough for the market. Maybe they’re not that beautiful, but they taste just as good.
September gave me a reason to open a Samish Bay Cheese I’ve been aging for four years. Every so often I buy a cheese from them and set it aside to age. I write the year and month four years from when it was made on the cheese. This is the first one I purchased to age four years ago.
After four years it is sharp. People mellow with age. Cheese gets edgy.
