a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

Making Lunch in the Summer

No matter what time of the year, making lunch starts with going out into the garden and vegetable beds to see what looks good today. Invariably, these ventures include a foray by the pond. What’s the point of going out to the garden if I’m not going to enjoy the pond? The cattails are forming their thick, bushy tails. By the end of summer they will turn to fluff. Come next spring, birds will use this fluff to line their nests.

Along the way I spot a welcome garden snake. They are plentiful this year and do a great service keeping the rodent populations down.

And I’m back in the kitchen with a bowel of fresh greens and eggs to make a simple, summer lunch. Gathering your lunch ingredients is stressless compared to going grocery shopping.

July 25, 2014
Off to Bed

The hen above has four chicks. Two of them are completely hidden underneath her warm feathers. You can just make out the gray and white tail feathers of a third chick to the left of the one chick who isn’t quite ready to snuggle underneath her mother.

The seven chicks below are too big to snuggle under their mother anymore. She’s on the roost behind them, making sure they are safe on their roost. From late afternoon onward, the entire flock comes home to roost. The oldest ones are the first to bed. The mothers and chicks are next. The last to come in for the night are the young juveniles. Not much different than many people.

July 24, 2014
Busy Mothers

Summer is a busy season for mother hens. Every week, there are new hens sitting on eggs. Those with chicks are taking their chicks out into the brush to find good hunting grounds. Each week they take them further and further.

The chicks below are a five weeks old. They are already sleeping on the roost at night next to their mother. A few more weeks and they will probably be on their own. Until then, they spend twenty-four hours a day by her side, learning new things every day.

July 24, 2014
Today’s Waste

This is the waste that is left over from processing salad greens. These greens are very edible. The stems may be a bit too twiggy for a raw salad, but they would work well steamed a bit. They’d also be good for soup or to make broth. The chickens will eat them. Tossed into a compost pile, all sorts of organisms will convert it into rich compost. Then it will grow more wonderful salad greens.

There really is no such thing as waste on a produce farm. Everything is part of a continuous process, going from one state to another.

July 24, 2014
Tiger Mom

For baby chicks, their mother is their teacher. They watch her every move and mimic what she does. In the first photo, look how intensely the chicks study her every move. If she pecks at something, so will they. If she flees from something, so will they. If they see her drinking, so will they.

As she teaches them life’s lessons, she watches out for them like a hawk. Some hens are more protective than others. You see the same thing with human parents. This hen, 紫雲姫 – Princess Purple Cloud, is a tiger mom. She keeps all the other chickens a safe distance away, and makes sure her chicks are always nearby. When she was incubating her eggs, if I got my hand or arm too close, she gladly drew blood. She is not a hen you want to mess with.

July 23, 2014