a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Reflections

  • No Overtime for Ruby


    We humans invent the oddest things. Overtime. It’s a big issue in Japan as next year’s college graduates look for their dream job and companies are frantically recruiting them. It’s no secret that many Japanese workers whittle away the evenings and nights doing overtime, but college graduates are on to companies which treat their workers that way. On the news last night were clips of college students going out at night, binoculars in hand, to spy into the office windows of companies they were interested in interviewing with. If they see the office lights on and catch workers toiling away late into the night, they scratch those companies off their list of places they want to work. And with the severe shortage of workers in Japan, companies are responding, slashing overtime and figuring out how to run their companies while demanding as little or no overtime at all. Otherwise the new college graduates will go work for someone else. Some companies turn off all the lights in their offices by eight p.m. Other companies resort to reducing the bonuses of all the staff in a division if even one person works too much overtime, and increasing the bonuses of divisions with no overtime. If the trend continues, Japan may become known as the country of no overtime and holidays. There are now 16 national holidays a year in Japan. Recent additions are Green Day 緑の日 – May 4 (from 1989), Ocean Day 海の日 – 3rd Monday of July (from 1996), and Mountain Day 山の日 – August 11 (from 2016).

    Overtime, it’s not even a concept for a chicken like Ruby. There really isn’t this idea of a time for this or a time for that or schedules or having to please the boss. It’s sit on a nest if I have the urge to lay an egg. Go out and eat if I’m hungry. Gossip with the other hens. Flirt with the nice rooster. And I guess, just do what she wants, all the time.




    Overtime isn’t a concept for Takuma 拓真 and Ena 枝那 either. There’s play time, more play time, more play time, eating time, and napping time. That’s basically it. I could get to a life like that.



    For the chickens this morning it’s a tofu breakfast. Such good food and no overtime required.

  • Promise of Things to Come


    The thimble berries are in bloom. Their delicate white petals promise of red berries to come. Among the eggs, small pullet eggs have started to appear. There is something charming about a hen’s first few eggs, like a child’s first drawing. What goes through a hen’s mind the first time she lays an egg?



    The dogs are after this chipmunk. He sit high above them, scolding them for even thinking of nabbing him. He keeps them occupied for hours at a time.


    And this is, well I haven’t named her yet. She is a new Ameraucana hen without a shy bone, and always curious. She comes running to investigate whatever I’m doing. Marie Curie reincarnated perhaps?

  • The Yin Yang of It All


    There are two main seasons in the Skagit Valley, November to early April when the swans are here, and April through October when the swans are not here. Those are the big seasons. Life yins and yangs with the appearance, disappearance of the swans. When the swans are here, is it a yin or a yang? Yin-陰 is shadow or dark, and yang-陽 is light or sunshine. So I suppose when the swans are here, it must be yin considering how dark that time of year is.

    In Japanese, the characters are still 陰陽, but in China they have been simplified to 阴阳, and the simplification is rather ingenious, as the right portion of the character for yin is the moon-月, and for yang it is the sun-日.

    Another important season are the months when peonies bloom. They opened a few days ago. Peony time is definitely a yang time of year.


  • After Earth Day


    It’s the morning after Earth Day and I am lucky to be able to step out of the house and in a few steps be in the woods. I could live in the city and wake up to look out the window at a wall, and have to walk a long way to get to a little speck of green, and only have time to do so on weekends and days off from a job sitting in a cubicle far from a window with my face glued to a computer screen from dusk to dawn. Instead I get to wake up to the songs of countless birds courting. Surround yourself with green, and the birds will find you.





    The elderberry have sent up their flower spikes. In a few months, the spikes will be ablaze with red berries which the birds will devour. In the forest, bleeding hearts are in full bloom. The variety that grows here is Dicentra formosa. Reading about it, I read that it was supposedly “discovered” by the Scottish surgeon and naturalist Archibald Menzies who was with Captain George Vancouver on his four and a half year voyage around the world. You read a statement like that and it sounds as if the people living here never noticed this jewel of a plant blooming at their footsteps.



    The trilliums are at the height of their bloom too. The forest floor just steps from the house is carpeted with them, so I was surprised to read that in many places it is illegal to pick them as some species are endangered. I have a fond memory of waking up in the morning while camping in the Olympic Mountains to see a fawn nibbling on trillium. Trillium have no true leaves. The three green leaves from which their flowers sprout are actually three large bracts.




    Russell and Kumo-hime 雲姫 are on their way into the forest to feast on bugs and nibble at the bleeding hearts and trillium. Freed from the constraints of the law, they can nibble at trillium without worrying about going to jail.

    Months ago, I considered making a bountiful meal out of Russell. As a young rooster, he was a bit of a pest. But I saved him on account of his unusual comb. I’m glad I did. He’s turned out to be the best watch rooster of the tribe. He spots incoming hawks and eagles with a distinctive trumpet call I can hear from a long way off, giving all the other chickens the chance to scurry to safety, and letting me run to shoo the hawks and eagles away. I’ve found that clapping my hands is a very effective way at getting the hawks to fly away.

  • Ice Art

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    The warmer weather and sunny skies have melted all the snow and ice out in the open. Yet, deep in the forest, where the sun rays barely tickle, the ice still rules. Buttercups are encased in solid glass, frozen bubbles float like jelly fish over the frozen forest floor. It’s an otherworldly spectacle to be enjoyed today. By next week, the ice art will be gone.

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