a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

  • Personality

    ToraHime

    Tora-hime is one of my favorite hens. She has such piercing eyes and beautiful feathers. It’s always easy to spot her when she is on a nest.

    CurledBarkThe bark I stripped off the alder trunks when I made posts dried and curled into these beautiful shapes. These strips of bark were flat when I peeled them off the alder trunks. In the sun, they turned red and curled.

    A little sanding, trimming, and waxing could turn these into interesting dishes for appetizers, chopstick holders, or flower vases.
    StellarJayNest

    Everyday there are surprises waiting to be discovered. This is an abandoned Stellar Jay’s nest. And below are the flowers of a barberry bush.

    Barberry

  • Chickens in the Blueberry Patch

    On a sunny day when the peonies are blooming, it’s time to weed the blueberry patch.

    20140507F-peonies
    20140507A-blueberryflowers

    This year, the blueberries are loaded with flowers. Weeding, hoeing, and digging quickly draws a gang of chickens eager to help. I didn’t even realize Lucky was trying to tell me something until I looked at the photos I had taken.

    20140507C-chickenstilling

    Billy stands guard, making sure the hens are safe.

    20140507D-chickenstilling

    The hens do a thorough job stirring up the dirt. They are after earthworms and bugs, but do a great job aerating the top few inches of soil. They will destroy anything you’ve planted, so they are of no help when you are trying to seed a vegetable bed.

    20140507B-chickenstilling

    It’s impossible to be bored when there are chickens and chicks around. Spending fifteen minutes with a hen and her chicks beats following Twitter feeds or looking at Facebook.

    20140507D-henwithchicks

  • Bees

    [wpvideo 0Pboe7t9]
    All it takes is a little sunshine and the bees are out in force. There are thousands of wild bees here. On sunny days, the rosemary, mint, oregano, lavender and other herbs are buzzing with them.

    There are 200 species of bees in this area, some 4,000 species in North America, and nearly 20,000 species of bees worldwide.

    According to Lisa Arkin, director for Beyond Toxic, “Without bees we would lose a third of the food that comes to our tables every day.”

    If you look closely, you can see one of the mother hens in the background.

    A Diversity of Bees Is Good for Farming—And Farmers’ Wallets ~ Smithsonian

  • Clouds Don’t Obscure Beauty

    Cloudy weather can’t obscure beauty. The ground is wet, very wet. Puddles are everywhere. And so is verdant green. The vine maples are in bloom, their red and yellow flowers flutter like butterflies.

    BurdockLeaves
    GarlicShoots
    HenWithChicks20140506
    MossOnBranch
    MossOnBranch2
    NewFern
    VineMapleBlossoms2

  • First Day of Summer

    For parts of the world, today is the first day of summer. After torrential rains this morning, the sun came out this afternoon. The sky can be so blue here. I feel sorry for those living where the skies are polluted much of the time.

    May5BlueSky

    Water is pouring off the hill. The drainage ditch alongside of the road down to the post office, is a cascade of muddy water.

    WaterFlowingInDitch

    I’ve been by this barbed wire fence hundreds of time, but didn’t notice until today that when they strung the fence, they left loops of barbed wire. The wire is rusted so it was left a long time ago. What happened? Was it just left there in case repairs were ever needed in the fence? Did the person stringing the fence forget it? Was it their contribution to rural art?

    BarbedWireFence