The snow which came at the beginning of February is almost a memory. Just a few patches remain, and today, the pond is thawed, the ice of yesterday and this morning gone.

The chickens are back on grass, and loving every minute of it.

Their nests are full of eggs each day.

Even the fig in the hoop house is budding.

In 1999, we purchased this sauce dish in Hagi 萩, a small town far off the beaten path in western Japan on the sea of Japan. Hagi is famous for its earthy, subdued pottery. I haven’t used this dish much. I was perfectly happy letting it sit on its shelf and being beautiful. Recently I discovered that it is a perfect utensil for pouring eggs into a skillet. One, two, three raw eggs fit perfectly in it, and when the butter in the skillet is hot, the eggs pour smoothly into the skillet.

Twenty years ago when I first picked up the dish, did it know that in the future it would become one of my favorite kitchen utensils? Did it know before I did that I would be living with chickens and ducks and need a handy utensil to pour raw eggs into a hot skillet? Is that why it called out, “Buy me,” in Hagi?

The snowpack is finally melting away, one snowflake at a time. For two weeks the ground has been covered with snow. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a snowpack last this long. Usually, they are gone in a day or two. It’s been a two week break from any garden work.

The snow has melted enough, the air warmed sufficiently, for the chickens to run free.

In a few days the grass will be poking through the vanishing snow. The chickens will be back to scratching for bugs and worms.

Heavy snow in the morning calls for a change of plans. I’m staying put today. Not going anywhere. I’m not one to rush around, not like I used to when I was young. Mad dashes to the subway, frantic runs to catch the next train, snowy days like today make the past seem like distant dreams. Why was ever in such a rush?

I remember one frantic Christmas/New Year break when I was thirteen, rushing with my older siblings and fellow boarding school classmates, seven in all, none of us older than 16, suitcases in hand, dashing through downtown Tokyo out to Haneda airport, and when we couldn’t get on a standby ticket, racing back into Tokyo to wedge ourselves onto a standing room only bullet train for three hours as far as Osaka, as that is as far as the bullet trains went back then, and onto a standing room only overnight train from there, stuck in the decks between the rail cars, clickety-clack, all through the night to distant home.

The snow is too deep for the chickens. They aren’t venturing out. A big bowl of steamed rice is what they want. I usually cook organic brown rice, but a delivery mixup left me with a 25 pound bag of organic white basmati rice. That taught me to always check the package labels on orders before hauling them home. Surprising how much you still need to learn after living so many decades. At some point you’d think you’d have learned everything there is to learn.

The chickens don’t mind. They scarf it down by the mouthful. This is bowl two this morning. They’ll devour a few more bowls today before dusk. Yes, there is a mad man who cooks organic rice for his chickens. My rice cooker will do up to five cups of rice at a time. It takes the chickens a few minutes to down that much rice.

The ducks devour steamed rice too, though this morning they are content to waddle about in their infinity pool, nibbling at the snow on the landing, and staring at the white, snowy woods.

The furthest I’m venturing today is out to the cabin to make tofu. I have an order to fulfill. On a quiet, snowy day, making tofu is a good thing to do.