a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: About My Chickens

A Remarkable Hen and Her Family

MiAsa Hime 美朝姫 is an extraordinary mother. Her chicks are more than three months old and she still spends her days with them and roosts with them at night. I’ve never had a mother hen attend to her chicks for so long. Some of her chicks are nearly as large as she is. Usually, hens raise their chicks for a month to two. For the ten years I’ve had mother hens raise chicks, this is the longest a hen has stayed with her chicks.

This is pumpkin season. It’s impossible to be sad when you’ve got a pumpkin to roast. Pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cake, roasted pumpkin salad … well you get the picture.

An ice scream scoop makes a handy tool to eviscerate a pumpkin.

Eviscerated and cut up, it’s on to the pot to roast. I like to keep the skin on. It becomes very soft after a thorough roasting in a dutch oven, and when I make pumpkin pie, I puree the skin along with the meat. It gives pumpkin pie a deep undertone of earthy goodness.

December 3, 2016
A Better Mother

While making tofu this afternoon I saw MiAsa 美朝 bring her two month old chicks out to graze under the plum trees by the cabin where I make my tofu. It’s hard to believe that in late August, the chicks were tiny bundles of fur peeking out from underneath her.

Now they are half the size of her. The whole family snuggles up together in one of the nests in the evening. Many hens are done raising their chicks by the time the chicks are this big, but MiAsa enjoys being a mother and having her little ones around her. She must be a special mother because among her chicks is one half the size of the others. You can see it in the photo above. It’s the much smaller, black chick to the left of her. It is actually a chick born to another hen weeks later, but who decided that it would rather hang around with MiAsa and her chicks instead of its own mother. What did it see in MiAsa that it didn’t see in its mother?

If you live nearby and you’d like fresh, homemade tofu, let me know. It is best when it is just made, still piping hot out of the press.

I’m prone to procrastinate, but Washington State makes it easy to vote. There are no polling stations in Washington. Everyone votes by mail. Our ballots arrived on Monday. We filled them out last night and sent them off today. It’s a relief to get that out of the way. Now if everyone would vote like I did, the world would be a much better, kinder place.

October 18, 2016
Who Loves Artichoke Blooms?

Spiders must hate foggy mornings. It makes their webs visible. There’s little chance of a bee or fly getting tangled up in a web when they sparkle like strings of diamonds.

Niji-hime 虹姫 is a mother whose path you dare not cross. She will pluck your eyes out to protect her chicks. She leads her chicks with her head held high. While I was taking these pictures, a belted kingfisher flew around high in the sky, making its loud, rattling cries. Niji-hime cocked her head, saw the noisy kingfisher, and told her chicks to be still. They froze and waited until she gave them the all clear call.

The bees have discovered an artichoke blossom. In droves they come to drink its nectar and gather its pollen. The next time you eat an artichoke, imagine how many bees would have come to feast on it if it had been left to bloom. I can imagine a worldwide movement arising, boycotting artichokes. “Don’t buy artichokes. Let them bloom and save the bees!” It could get ugly very fast. These movements have a way of spinning out of control. Restaurants would hide their artichoke dishes with lids so that their customers could savor artichokes without being yelled at. Farmers would have to truck their artichokes to market in the middle of the night. Pity the poor politician caught nibbling an artichoke. There would be no chance of them winning an election. Farmers would rush to have their artichoke farms certified bee friendly by leaving thirty percent of the artichokes on their plants to bloom. Want to make bees happy? Plant an artichoke and let it bloom.

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September 21, 2016
Cool Mornings … Warm Days

It’s chilly and the sun takes its time poking above the forest. It was 8:40 in the morning when I took this photo of Niji-himi 虹姫 and Scarlet, two mothers side by side, waiting on the grass for the sun to appear. Scarlet’s chicks are staying warm underneath her. Chickens worship the sun. Morning sunlight is their coffee. Paradise for them is rain at night, sunshine all day.

The white flower bean harvest is in full swing. Every day there is another pound or two of beans ready for picking.

September 13, 2016
Are You My Mother?

The warm, sunny afternoon has the bees buzzing around the sunflowers, and the red corn burning brightly. I’m dying to see what these ears are going to look like when they are ready. The whole corn stalks are a dark maroon.

And this poor little chick. This morning in the mad dash to get outdoors, it ended up with the wrong mother and siblings. It did all right, keeping up with the much bigger chicks of this other mother. They are several weeks older. If I could see his real mother, I’d snatch it away and put it with her, but she is way off in the thick brush somewhere. Maybe it will sort it out tomorrow.

September 10, 2016