a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

It’s OK to be Crazy

It’s OK to be crazy. When I’m giving people change at Bow Little Market, I don’t want to be handing out dirty money. Paper money is easy to wash, dry, and iron, so why not wash it and hand out lemony-fresh change? Be crazy. Make the world a happier, zanier place.

Each week, I’ll wash the change with a different soap. No one will ever notice, but hey, I will. This week it’s lemon, next week lavender, the week after grapefruit. Maybe the store you visit washes their money. You never know. The world is full of crazy people.

June 18, 2015
The Way to a Hen’s Heart

The way to a hen’s heart is through her beak. Which is why roosters spend much of their time looking for good things for the hens to eat. When they find delectable morsels, they let the hens know, and the hens come running. Old Billy, six years old now, still knows how to romance the hens. He’s no longer king of the hill. Younger roosters have taken over that role. That hasn’t slowed old Billy down. He can turn on the charm and attract an audience.

Of the hundreds of millions of egg laying hens on farms just in the US, how many have a rooster to romance them? Romance and love and flirting and being coy and teasing and seeing who is making out with whom are just as important to chickens as it is to us. The next time you pick up some eggs, ask your grocer, “Do the hens who lay these eggs have a rooster they can flirt with?”

June 17, 2015
Leaves on Fire

I was weeding around the grape vines and ran into these brilliant leaves. Sometimes the weeds are so stunningly beautiful, I can’t pull them.

June 16, 2015
Does She Glow?

Does she glow? She just started sitting on a clutch of eggs. They should hatch July 5 or 6. She’s ensconced in one of the nurseries, safe to sit in peace, undisturbed, not having to worry about another hen wanting to lay an egg in her nest.

The trickiest part about using nurseries for the brooding hens, is moving them into a nursery once they go broody on a regular nest. I have to move them at night, when it is dark. After a night sitting on eggs in a quiet spot, the brooding hens seem to enjoy having so much peace and quiet for themselves.

June 16, 2015
Wonder, Just a Few Steps Away

There are so many wonderful things just a few steps away from the front door. An hour doesn’t go by without seeing something that makes me smile. A dog sleeping in the grass, a scented geranium which leaves your fingers smelling like ginger and mint when you rub its leaves, irises blooming in the stream bed, fantastical flower buds, earthworms as long as my hand, and a husband who finds a tiny chicken egg. It must be from one of the chicks which hatched last December.

These are just a fraction of the wonders I encountered on a single day. It’s hard to stay in bed in the morning when so much wonder is waiting just a few steps away from the front door.

June 14, 2015