A bowl of fresh greens is a sure sign of spring. Food never tastes as good as when it comes fresh out of the garden while you are cooking. By the end of April, the garden will be overflowing with greens. With most people living in vast urban settings, it’s only a lucky few who get to eat fresh produce. If it’s more than a day old, it’s not really fresh.

The trilliums, spring beauties, and bleeding hearts are awake and pushing through the fallen leaves. Soon the forest floor will be a carpet of green with pink and white flowers. Can you imagine that almost no chicken ever gets to wriggle her toes in such lush undergrowth? And yet they are birds descended from jungle fowl. With such ancestry, every chicken deserves to spend time every day feeling the lush forest floor between her toes.

So do humans, when you think about it. We’re descended from forest dwellers too. So why are so many of us walking on concrete all the time? Our feet are made to move over thick carpets of moss and fallen leaves and wet tickling grasses. Feel the dew drops kiss your toes. Reclaim your heritage. Venerate our ancestors of a million years ago. Feel the grass between your toes. Liberate yourself from concrete.

On a spring day, Buttercup keeps her eggs warm. Hens have such fiery eyes, they should be grade school teachers. With such eyes glaring at them, no child would dare misbehave. When you are a mother-to-be, safeguarding a clutch of eggs, you need to be able to stare down any threat. For the three weeks they sit patiently on their eggs, I wonder what hens think about all day long.

As Buttercup patiently sits, the pears are in bloom. Before their blossoms open, they look like fluffy popcorn. When pear blossoms open, they spread their dark pink stamen as wide as possible. Against their white petals, the stamen must tell the bees that there is lots of pollen for them.

Skunk cabbage, that is. The skunk cabbage in the wet woods are in bloom. Lysichiton americanus are a sure sign that spring is well underway. Evidently bears dig them up and eat the roots as a laxative after their long winter hibernations. After sleeping most of the winter, you probably need a strong laxative to get your system working again.

Skunk cabbage grow along the Pacific from Alaska to as far south as Santa Cruz county in California. Before rushing out into the woods to dig up your natural laxative, read up on it. Skunk cabbage does contain calcium oxalate crystals which can cause your mouth to burn and is fatal in large doses.

Skunk cabbage is an arum which is group of plants known for their flowers which are produced in a spadix surrounded by a coloured spathe. They are poisonous and contain significant amounts of calcium oxalate.

In grade school I used to bike out into the countryside and hike in the forests. One day I found a beautiful plant, which was a Japanese type of Jack in the Pulpit. I took it home, and the root looked so delicious that I cut it up, and my mother and I nibbled at it. It tasted good, but it wasn’t long before our tongues and mouths were prickly. It was an odd sensation of being pricked by thousands of tiny needles and being numb at the same time. Fortunately, the sensations didn’t last long, and we lived. When in doubt, don’t.

Billy is happy to see me bring out a basket of potatoes to plant. Chickens love potatoes. You can plant rows and rows of potatoes, but if you let chickens into your potato beds, you will be lucky to see a handful of potatoes at the end of the season. Last year they had a steady feast in July and August. This year it’s my turn to have some potatoes.

These are All Blue potatoes. Later I’ll be planting Mountain Rose, Nicola, Satina, and Yukon Gold. The chickens will get their fair share.