The snow which came at the beginning of February is almost a memory. Just a few patches remain, and today, the pond is thawed, the ice of yesterday and this morning gone.

The chickens are back on grass, and loving every minute of it.

Their nests are full of eggs each day.

Even the fig in the hoop house is budding.

In 1999, we purchased this sauce dish in Hagi 萩, a small town far off the beaten path in western Japan on the sea of Japan. Hagi is famous for its earthy, subdued pottery. I haven’t used this dish much. I was perfectly happy letting it sit on its shelf and being beautiful. Recently I discovered that it is a perfect utensil for pouring eggs into a skillet. One, two, three raw eggs fit perfectly in it, and when the butter in the skillet is hot, the eggs pour smoothly into the skillet.

Twenty years ago when I first picked up the dish, did it know that in the future it would become one of my favorite kitchen utensils? Did it know before I did that I would be living with chickens and ducks and need a handy utensil to pour raw eggs into a hot skillet? Is that why it called out, “Buy me,” in Hagi?