a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

Out in the Field Today – September 19, 2014

Every trip into the vegetable beds is a voyage of discovery. You don’t have to look far to find beauty. Mother nature can’t touch a single square foot of land without leaving behind breathtaking splendor.

I had a laugh today listening to Ira Flatow on Science Friday today. He was interviewing Michael J. Sheehan about facial recognition. As I listened, it dawned on me that Ira Flatow must spend almost no time with animals. He commented how animal faces all look the same while human faces are very different. His comment made me laugh. Has this man not even looked at two dog faces side by side? He certainly hasn’t looked closely at a flock of chickens.

September 19, 2014
On an Early Fall Day

It’s gradually becoming the cool, wet time of the year. For Lucky and her chicks, it means having a big breakfast before spending the day outdoors in the cool, drizzly weather.

In the village, the last flowers of summer are as beautiful as ever. The butterflies are enjoying the last sips of nectar. The beauty of the Pacific Northwest is that the seasons change gently and slowly, giving plenty of time to enjoy the transformations. Each day is just slightly different than the day before it.

The first fall leaves are dropping. Ahead of me are weeks and months of gathering leaves to compost and use in vegetable beds in the spring, summer, and next fall. They are much more satisfying to use than artificial fertilizer sold in plastic containers. Raking the leaves provides plenty of exercise. The earthy smell as they break down is enjoyable. The crumbly texture of composted leaves soothes my fingers. And as the leaves break down, they attract an infinite variety of bugs the chickens love to eat. The bugs eat the decaying leaves. The chickens eat the bugs. I eat the eggs of the chickens. In a way, when I crack open an egg and eat it, I am eating the autumn leaves. If I close my eyes, can I taste the autumn leaves in the eggs?

On the way home from delivering eggs, there’s time to enjoy my favorite cows.

September 18, 2014
Lucky and Her Two Day Old Chicks

After just two days, Lucky has taken her chicks outdoors to enjoy life. In the clip below, you can see how little chicks bury under their mother when they want some warmth.

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During the day she takes them further and further into the grass to explore and find good things to eat.

September 17, 2014
Tree Trimmers

Near the post office is this long row of fifty or so trimmed poplar trees. Whoever trims them must spend a lot of time trimming them as they are always trimmed. Only, it turns out that it’s not a person who keeps these trees looking so neat. It’s a pair of cows. They go along the fence by the trees, nibbling at the trees and eating all the branches and leaves they can reach. In the process they keep the bottom branches of the leaves all trimmed to the same height.

The next time you are in the country and see a row of trees with their lower branches all trimmed neatly. Look for cows. They’re most likely the ones trimming the trees.

September 17, 2014
She Did It!

Lucky’s eggs hatched. After watching hens hatch eggs for five years, you’d think it would be no big deal. But each hatching is wonderful. And Lucky is a very special hen. As a tiny chick, she had an unfortunate accident and scraped the back of her head and neck. We had to separate her from her siblings as they kept pecking at her wound. Oh she peeped and peeped and peeped to be with them. They didn’t have a mother. Someone had ordered some chicks from a hatchery and received the wrong breeds. The local post office called and asked if we’d take them.

We rigged up a space with chicken wire just for Lucky so she could be right next to her siblings while she healed. She grew up to be an outgoing hen, with a very distinctive look. She’s usually the first hen to see what we’re doing when we go to work in the gardens.

We weren’t sure if her eggs would hatch. She decided to brood her eggs in a nest a few other hens also liked to use to lay eggs. Sometimes we’d find her in the next nest while another hen lay an egg in her nest. We marked the eggs we put under her for her to hatch, so we were able to remove any eggs other hens added to her clutch.

From time to time, we found her sitting on new eggs in the nest next to hers and had to move her back onto her eggs. One morning I found that she’d even spent a whole night on the other nest and her eggs were cold. I had my doubts any of her eggs would hatch. But they did, and now she has a happy brood to raise.

September 16, 2014