a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

Baby Greens

For many people, the first time they encounter a tomato or a bunch of salad greens is in the grocery aisle in their supermarket. Or, if they are getting their food prepackaged, or in a can, or in a jar, or in a restaurant, or in the frozen food section of their supermarket, they don’t even see that.

But baby vegetables, popping out of the earth and spreading their leaves, have a charm all of their own. They can be as cute as baby chicks. Don’t have a garden or place to grow things? Check out How Things Grow at a man and his hoe® from time to time to see how your food grows. Do you want to see how a particular vegetable grows? Let me know.

Baby Arugula

Baby Swiss Chard

Baby Ruby Streaks Mustard

Baby Squash

Baby Tomato

Important to all growing vegetables, is a healthy environment. This includes providing habitat for a rich variety of insects. All of the vegetable beds here are not far from borders of flowering plants which provide food and shelter for predatory insects, spiders, and even snakes. See Bees, The Beauty of Produce, How Apple Pie Starts, How Things Grow, and The Soil Will Save Us.

May 12, 2014
Iris on the Verge

The iris by the pond are on the verge of unfolding. The thick vegetation along the banks of the pond is a perfect home for garden snakes, a playground for the dogs, and a foraging garden for the chickens.

May 12, 2014
Bring Out the Cannon to Shoot the Sparrows

Curious as to the sculptor and the actual sculpture I saw at the Hakone Open-Air Museum back in my college days, I sent a query to the museum describing the sculpture. A short time ago I got a reply from the museum. The sculpture is now at their sister open-air museum, The Utuskushigahara Open-Air Museum in Nagano prefecture in Japan. The links are in Japanese, but they have plenty of pictures to give you an idea of the beautiful, mountainous area. Below is a picture of that sculpture.

The sculpture is by the Swiss artist Bernhard Luginbühl and is titled スズメヲウツノニタイホウヲモチダス Suzume wo utsu noni taihou wo mochidasu, which translates to Bring out the cannon to shoot the sparrow. He created many huge, fantastical pieces. Take a look at the Iron Giants’ Garden, a park in Mötschwil, canton Bern, Switzerland, that has a collection of his work. And below are images of some of his works. The world has an endless supply of interesting, creative people.

May 11, 2014
On Mother’s Day

This is a tribute to the 99.999999999999% of chicks who don’t have a mother. Who are hatched in mechanical incubators, rushed to broilers and laying barns, and grow up never spending a night snuggled under a mother’s warm feathers.

This is a tribute to the 99.999999999999% of laying hens who never get to hatch a single one of the many hundreds of eggs they lay. Who never get to express their love for little chicks.

A melodramatic, sentimental tribute, and yet, perhaps the fact that we don’t even stop to consider that chicks do need a mother, and think it quaint that there are still places that have mother hens raising chicks, speaks more about what has happened to us humans than anything.

A mother hen teaches the chicks manners. She teaches them to be confident in the presence of other hens, and to mingle with the rest of the flock.

Happy Mother’s Day! The chicks who have mothers sure adore them.
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May 11, 2014
Mornings Start Early

Mornings start early for the roosters. They start crowing at the crack of dawn.
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Mornings start early for a mother hen and her chicks. They are often the first ones out of the chicken yard. Often it is the little ones that are most anxious to get outdoors.

It’s a different story with these chicks. Last night their mother was back up on the roost and the four chicks spent their first night without her. This morning they are glad to have her back, though now that she is roosting again, it won’t be long before they will be on their own for good.

And a pleasant surprise this morning was finding a young hen laying her first egg.

May 11, 2014