a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Month: March 2019

  • Along Friday Creek to Get Coffee


    Last night’s rain washed away nearly all the snow. Just a few patches remain, and with the forecast of warmer days ahead, it will soon be but a memory.


    The chicks in the nursery are doing well. They’ve bonded with their mother and have figured out when she is telling them she’s found good things to eat, and when there is danger. When she is resting, she doesn’t mind them hopping all over her. Since these aren’t chicks she hatched, I wasn’t sure if she’d take to them, or them to her.


    I don’t suppose there are that many people lucky enough to pedal along an idyllic creek when they go pick up their roasted coffee beans. It’s not a long ride to where I get my coffee, but the windy Friday Creek Road passes over Friday Creek six times in two miles. It’s hard pedaling over the bridges without stopping to see how the creek is doing.


    Friday Creek today was on a tear, flush with last night’s rain. On summer days, it flows soft and clear, skipping over pebbles, and laughing past the trees.

  • Let It Do Its Thing


    We get into trouble when we don’t let things do their thing in the time it takes for them to do whatever they are doing. You can make bread quickly by adding things like calcium carbonate, sodium sterol lactylate, mono-and diglycerides, mono calcium phosphate, calcium dioxide, soy lecithin, azodicarbononamide, calcium propionate, datem (diacetyl tartaric acid ester of mono- and diglycerides, also E472e), sorbic acid, and other miraculous chemicals, such as many commercial breads use, but why would you?

    Or you can let it rest quietly through the night, and let the wild yeasts and bacteria munch on the dough until in the morning it is light and fluffy like a cloud from all their miniature burps. No odd ingredients needed.



    There is something pleasing about dough that wild yeast has fed on all night. It shapes easily, and feels so good in my hands.




    What comes out of the hot oven fills the house with such wonderful aromas.

  • What a Difference a Day Makes


    Yesterday the sun was out, and the snow geese gaggled up a storm on the open field, as I delivered fresh tofu to the Anacortes Food Co-op.


    Today the blue skies are gone, and snow is falling steadily as I head out to the cabin to make tofu for tomorrow. In the nursery, the chicks are staying warm with their mama. One of these days it will be warm and sunny and the chicks will be chasing bugs in the grass, just not today.