a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: January 2017

The Color Brown

It’s a brown, brown world in the forest. The dried leaves above are actually frozen in an invisible sheet of ice. Walking on them is like walking on thick glass. There is no crunch of dried leaves, just silence. The ice is so thick and hard, it doesn’t give.

In the vegetable garden, the artichoke blossoms have turned to an ashen brown. I’ve left them because I’ve read that insects overwinter in places like these.

Maple samara lie still in the snow, their wings slowly decaying. In places they gather by the handful, like dead butterflies. A single tree produces tens of thousands of samara, each with two seeds. Of these, just a handful ever become a tree. It seems like a wasteful process, but it works. Maple trees have been around for over a hundred million years.

A snow print from a boot looks like a cartoon character. Art happens when you least expect it.

January 6, 2017
Snow Vegetables

As a little boy, I never dreamed I’d be picking vegetables out of a garden covered with shimmering, powdery snow. But beneath this bitter cold snow, greens abound. Cabbages, kales, and other hearty greens stay fresh under a blanket of snow.

It only takes a few minutes to fill a basket with enough greens for a hearty, winter lunch.

On the way back to the kitchen, it’s impossible to ignore the beauty of grass frozen in a river of glassy ice, or the snow crystals on black ice. You don’t see such beauty in the aisles of a supermarket. Unexpected beauty is the reward for growing your own vegetables, that and not having to go through a checkout and bagging your produce, and not worrying about anyone yelling at you if you nibble the produce as you pick them.

A few days ago, I read an article at NPR’s website titled Staying Fit Isn’t a New Year’s Resolution for These Hunter-Gatherers. It was about the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Northern Tanzania. They spend most of their time active outdoors, and this comment struck me:

A Hadza kid has never spent a day inside because there is no inside.

Wow, imagine a life where you are never indoors.

January 5, 2017
Arctic Sojourn

Our sojourn into the arctic continues. The boy fishing on the dock ponders the meaning of an icy pond. Russel, our flame-orange rooster can’t hide in the snowy woods. Like a flame flaring out in the open, he’s visible from a mile away. He was destined for the oven a month ago, but he has the most unusual comb, a triple comb as flashy as any hat from the court of Versailles, so until he passes it on to offspring, his life is spared.

An unexpected reward of this arctic blast has been the discovery that soaking soybeans overnight under a trickling faucet, yields the purest, plumpest soybeans for making tofu. Under the crystal clear water, the beans rest quietly, all their impurities washed away.

The resulting tofu cried out to be eaten right away. No matter how many times you have done something, you can do it slightly better the next time. One tiny improvement upon one tiny improvement over time is a stress free way to reach perfection.

There is a saying in Japan that it takes three years to learn how to cook rice, and eight years to make sushi. There is a lot of truth to that. I’ve been baking bread for decades, tofu for 15 years, and still I keep getting better.

In the woods, the ripples of the wind are frozen solid. The ice looks like a babbling creek, frozen in time. Underneath the cold hard ice, ghostly air bubbles, trapped in an icy purgatory, wait for a thaw to be free.

January 4, 2017
A Time of Firsts

It is a time of firsts, the first egg of the New Year, one I gathered yesterday morning. Do I eat it? Do I sell it? Do I hatch it? The possibilities are endless if you let your mind go wild.

The first bread of the New Year, baked yesterday morning. One loaf is already gone. Each baking is an opportunity to experiment. One loaf is made with commercial yeast, the other with my levain. Are my loaves good enough to sell at this year’s farmers markets? They are getting there.

The first soybean soaking for the first tofu of the year. This cold snap and the first tofu making coincided to let me test if beans soak better under a trickle of running water. I’ve been tempted to try it before, but it seems wasteful so I haven’t. Since I need to let the water run anyway, I’ll grab the chance and try it. I like the idea of beans soaking under a slow stream of water for hours and hours to wash away their sins all night long. Maybe I can call the resulting tofu Pureland Tofu, or Jesus Saves Tofu, you know, to capture that market.

January 2, 2017
New Year’s Dawn

Last night, I didn’t think we’d see the sunrise this morning. What a surprise to wake up this morning and see a pink sky. As I made this morning’s coffee, the sun lit up the tops of the trees. Forty-five minutes after the official sunrise of 8:01, the sun shone brilliantly through the trees. 2017 is off to a glorious start.

January 1, 2017