a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Happiness

  • On This Solstice Day

    Mar20A

    On this solstice day, the pears open their flowers.

    On this solstice day, Tangerine checks to see if the old doghouse is good for laying eggs.

    Mar20B
    Mar20C

    On this solstice day, a potato wakes from its long winter’s sleep. It’s a gentle reminder that I can start planting potatoes.

    On this solstice day, Midge helps me with the weeding. I weed, she helps herself to all the worms.

    Mar20D
    Mar20E
    Mar20F

    On this solstice day, Sven is there to guard the hens as they join Midge to help me with the weeding.

    On this solstice day, the skunk cabbage fill the spring air with their skunky perfume.

    Mar20G

  • And Then We Die … or Not

    PlumBlossomsOnBranch

    We do all this work, and then we die. At times you wonder what the point is. We might as well die now and be done with it. But then the plum tree blooms, and the bees fly onto the blossoms, and the sun is shining, and it is like, this is paradise, who would want to die now? I don’t believe in heaven, but even if I did, it wouldn’t be nicer than this, so what would be the point of dying anyway?

    BeeOnPlum

    [wpvideo OGZ9FNFw]

    The bee is in no hurry to die. From flower to flower to goes. On a plum tree, the flowers are so close together, it doesn’t even need to fly. There’s one good drink of nectar after another. I’m watching something far more amazing than anything humans do. Watch the bee insert its long tongue into the flowers. Look at it’s antennae feel its way around. Those little wings, they look like a joke, and yet they carry the bee safely home.

    LovageAndEggs

    And in the garden, the lovage is out. I’ll wait to die until I’ve at least tasted this season’s lovage. And then there will be one more amazing thing, and another, and another. Who knows, with so many amazing things to see, I may live to be over a hundred.

  • 沈丁花 – Chinchōge

    ChinchogeA

    Few flowers smell as sweet as sweet daphne. It blooms in late winter and early spring, filling the air with sweetness. You can’t smell it and be sad. A native of southern China, it is popular in Japan. The Korean name, “churihyang” means a thousand mile scent, a very fitting name as its fragrance carries a long way.

    I remember the first time I biked past one and had to stop to see what flower smelled so wonderful so early in the spring. I asked the woman at the house where it was blooming, what it was, and she told me and said I could take a cutting. “Stick it in the ground and it will grow,” she said. I thanked her, but since I didn’t have a garden at the time, I left without a cutting. Now I have a large bush which is in full bloom.

    ChinchogeB

  • There Is Hope

    LadyBugA

    A day’s break from the rain gave an opportunity to do some gardening, and the delight of finding a ladybug looking for something good to eat. Ladybugs eat a large variety of pests, not just aphids. There are some 6,000 varieties of ladybugs (Coccinellidae).

    Awake after winter’s long sleep, a ladybug in the garden is hope. After seeing the ladybug, I decided to take a chance and plant several rows of radish. In the photo below, you’ll see another bug on the left, looking at the ladybug. It’s probably hoping not to be the ladybug’s lunch.

    LadyBugC

  • The Trees Are Afire

    BurnBurnBurn

    The low winter sun sets the trees afire. It looks like the whole woods is aflame. The alders face off as if insane, waving their branches and twigs every which way, twisting themselves into untangable knots.

    DaffodilAlmostInBloom

    The cool, drizzly weather keeps the dandelions buds closed tight. They are one sunbeam away from exploding open.