a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: September 2017

  • Tea for You and Your Cat


    Along the path out to the tofu house catmint blooms. Its leaves have such a delightful fragrance, I couldn’t resist making tea from them.


    The tea they made was so refined and soothing. It’s the type of tea a delicate princess who can feel a pea under twenty mattresses would drink. Between sips of catmint tea, I rested the cup on an armchair, and was amused when our cat, Rusty, jumped up and drank the tea, not gracefully like a delicate princess, he pushed his whole face into the cup and slurped it, he found it that delicious.


    I’ve never known Rusty to drink tea before. Catmint isn’t as intoxicating to cats as catnip, but it’s plenty stimulating to them. Now when I want to have tea with our cat, I know what to serve.

  • SCOBY-Do


    Here’s the latest child to take up residence here, or should I call it another indoor garden? About three weeks ago I ordered some kefir grains and started culturing a glass of kefir in the kitchen window. The grains are a SCOBY, a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. They look like rice grains in a porridge.


    Every twelve hours or I strain the kefir, running it through a sieve, and collecting the kefir in a bowl. I use a spoon to mash the kefir grains against the sieve until I’ve reduced the grains inside the sieve to about a quarter cup, and have a thick, creamy bowl of kefir below.




    The creamy kefir is ready to drink, and I stir the remaining kefir grains into a glass of lukewarm milk to grow and do their thing again.