a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Author: theMan

  • November at Last

    swans in field

    Yesterday while coming home from an errand, I saw swans flying overhead. There were swans in the fields too. At last, it feels like November is here.

    According to the clerk in the Bow Post Office, she saw swans yesterday, so they were here on November 1.

    snowgeese in field

    Near where the swans were feeding, a flock of snow geese raised a ruckus. With all of them chatting at the same time, how do they know who is talking and who is saying what to whom? It seems worse than trying to carry on a conversation in a noisy restaurant. Is the loudest snow goose yelling at the others to shut up?

    It is amazing that long before humans sailed the seas, bird brained creatures traversed everywhere. In Europe, humans feared dropping off the edge of the earth if they ventured too far out to sea. Bird brained albatross and boobies had no such fear. Unbound by fairy tales and superstitions, they took to flight and roamed the seas. Arctic terns flew back and forth from the Arctic to the Antarctic, a feat humans wouldn’t accomplish until recently.

    Tens of millions of years before humans came into existence, birds filled the skies. They had all this how-to-navigate-the-globe figured out long before the first human began chiseling crude symbols into stone. If humans had listened to the birds, they wouldn’t have come up with the nonsense about falling off the edge of the world. Birds could have told us that there is no edge, that you just keep going round and round and round. We weren’t listening.

  • November 1 and No Swans


    Today is the first of November. In many years, the swans have flown in from Alaska and Siberia by now. On a number of years, I’ve seen them first flying on November 1, but not this year. Today’s blue skies had no swans.




    The nearly grown ducklings are in training. Tomorrow they will be graduating from the tank in the garden to the pond. To reduce the trauma of me picking them up and carrying them to the pond, they are getting used to eating between the two gates leading into the garden. I can trap them in that enclosure, pick them up easily, and quickly carry them to the pond.



    The chickens enjoy dry autumn days as much as I do. They find an endless supply of things to eat under the dried leaves.

  • First Frost

    frost in the grass and leaf

    We had our first frost yesterday. A very light frost. Just enough to dust the grass and fallen leaves. The forecast is for a freeze this weekend, maybe enough to make the wet ground crunch when you walk on it.

    frost in the grass and leaves
    frost in the grass and maple leaf
    foxglove in the woods
    Chuckanut in the fal

    Yesterday’s sunshine has turned into a cold, windy mist this morning. Winter is coming and so are the swans. I’ve already seen flocks of snow geese flying overhead. And heard them too. Once, late at night, flying invisibly through the night sky. It’s amazing that these birds make these epic journeys without carrying any baggage. If humans could take to the skies like birds, we’d be burdened down with bags strapped to our backs, dangling from our bellies, small packs filled with goods clinging to our legs and arms, and head braces holding our phones in front of our faces so we have something to see when we get bored by earth’s incredible beauty below us.

    But snow greese and swans take flight with nothing. They arrive with nothing. But from their chatter and honking, they seem perfectly happy.

  • Too Wet to Burn

    brilliant forrest

    The woods are too wet to burn. You could pour gasoline on them and they wouldn’t catch fire. But let there be a sliver of a break in the clouds at sunset, and the whole forest is ablaze.

    trees on fire
    cottonwoods and dark clouds

    Against the dark clouds, as thick and heavy as wet wool, the cottonwoods shine brightly. You can’t live in the Pacific Northwest if you don’t love clouds, appreciate infinite shades of gray and green, and don’t even notice that every time you go outside, you get wet. Umbrellas are more nuisance than help. Humans have waterproof skin. Hair dries. Let the mist cool your face. Let the rain dampen your hair.

    cottonwoods in the evening sun

  • Eyes Wide Shut

    sign

    The nice thing about going to the post office on a bicycle is that you travel slow enough to see new things.

    sign close up
    sorrel

    And see things that have always been there, in plain sight, but you’ve never seen before. It looks like the same ol’ same ol’ ditch I go by not far from home, but for some reason when I went by a few days ago, I saw something for the first time in the fifteen years I’ve been going by this ditch.

    sorrel

    Sorrel. One bunch of sorrel after the other. Enough sorrel to make a thousand salads and soups. How did I not see this before? Someone didn’t come by this week and plant all this sorrel. From one seed many years ago, a sorrel took root in this ditch and spread. Maybe if I had gone by with my ears open too, I would have heard the sorrel calling, “We’re here! Down here! Look down here!”

    sorrel