a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: May 2017

  • No Overtime for Ruby


    We humans invent the oddest things. Overtime. It’s a big issue in Japan as next year’s college graduates look for their dream job and companies are frantically recruiting them. It’s no secret that many Japanese workers whittle away the evenings and nights doing overtime, but college graduates are on to companies which treat their workers that way. On the news last night were clips of college students going out at night, binoculars in hand, to spy into the office windows of companies they were interested in interviewing with. If they see the office lights on and catch workers toiling away late into the night, they scratch those companies off their list of places they want to work. And with the severe shortage of workers in Japan, companies are responding, slashing overtime and figuring out how to run their companies while demanding as little or no overtime at all. Otherwise the new college graduates will go work for someone else. Some companies turn off all the lights in their offices by eight p.m. Other companies resort to reducing the bonuses of all the staff in a division if even one person works too much overtime, and increasing the bonuses of divisions with no overtime. If the trend continues, Japan may become known as the country of no overtime and holidays. There are now 16 national holidays a year in Japan. Recent additions are Green Day 緑の日 – May 4 (from 1989), Ocean Day 海の日 – 3rd Monday of July (from 1996), and Mountain Day 山の日 – August 11 (from 2016).

    Overtime, it’s not even a concept for a chicken like Ruby. There really isn’t this idea of a time for this or a time for that or schedules or having to please the boss. It’s sit on a nest if I have the urge to lay an egg. Go out and eat if I’m hungry. Gossip with the other hens. Flirt with the nice rooster. And I guess, just do what she wants, all the time.




    Overtime isn’t a concept for Takuma 拓真 and Ena 枝那 either. There’s play time, more play time, more play time, eating time, and napping time. That’s basically it. I could get to a life like that.



    For the chickens this morning it’s a tofu breakfast. Such good food and no overtime required.

  • Promise of Things to Come


    The thimble berries are in bloom. Their delicate white petals promise of red berries to come. Among the eggs, small pullet eggs have started to appear. There is something charming about a hen’s first few eggs, like a child’s first drawing. What goes through a hen’s mind the first time she lays an egg?



    The dogs are after this chipmunk. He sit high above them, scolding them for even thinking of nabbing him. He keeps them occupied for hours at a time.


    And this is, well I haven’t named her yet. She is a new Ameraucana hen without a shy bone, and always curious. She comes running to investigate whatever I’m doing. Marie Curie reincarnated perhaps?

  • The Yin Yang of It All


    There are two main seasons in the Skagit Valley, November to early April when the swans are here, and April through October when the swans are not here. Those are the big seasons. Life yins and yangs with the appearance, disappearance of the swans. When the swans are here, is it a yin or a yang? Yin-陰 is shadow or dark, and yang-陽 is light or sunshine. So I suppose when the swans are here, it must be yin considering how dark that time of year is.

    In Japanese, the characters are still 陰陽, but in China they have been simplified to 阴阳, and the simplification is rather ingenious, as the right portion of the character for yin is the moon-月, and for yang it is the sun-日.

    Another important season are the months when peonies bloom. They opened a few days ago. Peony time is definitely a yang time of year.


  • The Sun Is All It Takes


    A blue sky and brilliant sun is all that was needed to bring on the bees. I won’t have to worry about the apples not getting pollinated. The warm sun also made the arugula shoot up fast. Arugula is another vegetable which seeds easily. Let some of it bloom and go to seed, and each spring it keeps coming back once the sun returns.



    The sun also brought out this earthworm. While planting a row of radish, it slid out of the ground, slipped over the surface, and disappeared about a foot away, making me wonder what would make an earthworm crawl out of the ground on a sunny day. Was it fleeing a mole or marauding beetle? Was it curious about the sun? Did it need to warm up?


    The warm sun makes the lilac perfume the yard. It also makes the tulips melt. The sun is all it takes.


  • Magenta awakes


    While weeding and planting in the garden this weekend, I was assured to see magenta spreen sprouts. It has an impressive name, Chenopodium giganteum, and giganteum these tiny sprouts are, though they have the tiniest of seeds, smaller than cabbage seeds, finer than poppy seeds, and yet, somehow, these tiny, tiny, tiny seeds, sleep through the winter, survive without being eaten, (maybe being tiny, tiny, tiny helps, “Not worth a nibble,” the passing bugs say) wake up, and put on a dazzling display of pink, purple, magenta and green.

    Over the summer they will grow much taller than I am, and in the fall send their tiny, tiny, tiny seeds raining down onto the warm earth, where they will snuggle in for another long, winter’s sleep, and wake up the following May.

    I like magenta spreen because it is a plant I don’t have to plant. A no-fuss plant, it grows and grows, sending out new shoots no matter how many times you harvest its lovely leaves.