a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: September 2017

  • A Sigh of Relief


    The first tinge of reds and ochres is coloring the leaves. So much beauty is just around the corner, and I don’t have to go anywhere to see it. Every morning when I step outside, there is a bit more color on the trees and bushes. It makes the cooler weather worth it.



    The rosemary bushes are breathing a sigh of relief that summer is over and the farmers markets will soon be over. They are tired of me snipping away at them all summer. I am on their shit list for sure. They probably fantasize of swatting me away with their branches. Who knew rosemary bread would be such a hit and that I would need to snip so many rosemary stems? To ease the burden on the rosemary bushes, I’ve planted several new rows of rosemary plants. I guess you can never have too many rosemary bushes.

  • Pure Soy Milk


    I received the OK from the Washington State Department of Agriculture to sell my soy milk. I’ve looked at the soy milks sold in grocery stores including stores like the Skagit Valley Food Coop and Community Food Co-op in Bellingham, and it’s impossible to buy unadulterated soy milk. Almost all of them have some added sugars such as cane sugar. They all have stabilizers such as gellan gum or carrageenan; salt; various vitamins; and some add oils such as canola oil. Pure soy milk doesn’t seem to be sold anywhere.

    You can get it from me. I’m selling it on Saturdays at the Mt. Vernon Farmers Market in downtown Mt. Vernon, Washington. The Anacortes Food Coop also carries it.

    And why would you want pure soy milk? If you are using it for cooking, such as making soups, curries, or hot pot dishes, having added sugars, gums, salt, and additional oils, ruins the flavor.

  • Raking Dead Sunshine and Devil’s Cats


    All summer long the cherry trees have been soaking up the sunshine and converting it into green leaves. They are falling to the ground, and lie quietly, no longer shining, thousands of sunshine corpses. It doesn’t take long before there are mountains of them.

    Before the chickens lay waste to the piles of fallen leaves, I need to cart them away to the garden. A flock of mischievous hens can destroy piles of fall leaves in minutes. Each flick of their legs sends a hundred leaves flying. Leave the piles unattended for long, and you’ll come back to fallen leaves scattered here and there, and chickens looking at you and wondering what they could have possibly have done to make you frown.



    While carting the leaves to the garden, I ran into this phantasmagoric creature. How many barbs does this golden, slinking bit of fuzz have? If I were a bird, I’d think twice before swallowing this caterpillar of many quills. Interesting bit about the word “caterpillar”, it could be a variant of the French word “chatepelose” which means “hairy cat”. The Swiss German word for caterpillar, “Teufelskatz”, means “devil’s cat”. They must have similar caterpillars in Switzerland.

  • The World is Iridescent


    On a sunny fall day, the world is iridescent. A luminous green fly shines on a corn leaf. A forest of corn is an insect haven. Every leaf has a fly, a wasp, or some other insect.




    The sunflowers have reached the sky. They tower over the towering corn. Will I be lucky enough to harvest sunflower seeds this year? Last year, the birds plucked them bald all before I had a chance.



    Some chickens are quite iridescent. I haven’t named these two yet, but the Turken, the one with the featherless neck, has some amazing feathers on her head and her back. Is the plain Buff Orpington jealous of the Turken’s coat of many colors? Is she wondering why she isn’t the iridescent one?

  • Summer Closes Its Door, Fall Opens Its


    Summer closed its door this week and is gone for good. Fall’s door opened with gentle rains, sprinkled with a few lightning bolts and thunder. Two days of cool rain and the forest paths are soft and moist again. It feels like we are back in the Pacific Northwest.

    We are enjoying fall greens this evening, picked fresh out of the garden. The dogs? They won’t be needing much if anything. They are feasting on wild rabbit they caught in the pasture while I was deciding which cabbage to pluck.

    No one told me that one of my duties would be severing a dog-slaughtered wild rabbit asunder so that the two dogs would each get a half. Dogs are not good at sharing. Takuma carried the entire carcass into one of the dog houses and was going to eat it all himself. It was up to me to drag it out, divide it in two, and give half to Ena. I’ll spare you the gory photographs. Suffice it to say that nature is often not kind. Everything is eaten by something. It is a fact you are reminded every day when you live in nature. You’re just thankful it wasn’t you today when you lay your head on your pillow at night. I guess if my posts cease without notice, you’ll know something gobbled me up.