a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Reflections

  • 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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  • Sojourn to the Arctic is Over

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    Our eight day sojourn to the arctic is over. Yesterday morning we woke up and all the snow and ice were gone. Just a few dying wisps of snow remained in the shadows, and a few remaining shards of grand icebergs wept themselves away in the bright sun.

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    Day lily shoots stayed green, waiting for enough warm sunshine to send their shoots high into the spring air … next month perhaps? Onion shoots and kale greens, the week plus long freeze didn’t damage them at all.

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    Hazel and her sisters are back out in the garden, greeting me when I come outside from making tofu, bearing gifts of okara for them. Okara are the mashed soybean solids that are left over when you make tofu. Chickens will mob you if they see you carrying okara, just warning you if have chickens and decide to make tofu one day. Though, think hard about it, because if you do it once, they will expect it often, and will look funny at you when you visit them empty handed.

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    When I think about it, okara resembles the manna from heaven I heard about as a child. Maybe Yahweh was making tofu up there and tossed his okara down for the sojourners in the desert who were complaining about not having enough to eat. I think a lot of believers are in for a big surprise when they walk through the pearly white gates and find out that all Yahweh makes is tofu. If you want to be happy in heaven, eat tofu every day.

  • Arctic Sojourn

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    Our sojourn into the arctic continues. The boy fishing on the dock ponders the meaning of an icy pond. Russel, our flame-orange rooster can’t hide in the snowy woods. Like a flame flaring out in the open, he’s visible from a mile away. He was destined for the oven a month ago, but he has the most unusual comb, a triple comb as flashy as any hat from the court of Versailles, so until he passes it on to offspring, his life is spared.

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    An unexpected reward of this arctic blast has been the discovery that soaking soybeans overnight under a trickling faucet, yields the purest, plumpest soybeans for making tofu. Under the crystal clear water, the beans rest quietly, all their impurities washed away.

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    The resulting tofu cried out to be eaten right away. No matter how many times you have done something, you can do it slightly better the next time. One tiny improvement upon one tiny improvement over time is a stress free way to reach perfection.

    There is a saying in Japan that it takes three years to learn how to cook rice, and eight years to make sushi. There is a lot of truth to that. I’ve been baking bread for decades, tofu for 15 years, and still I keep getting better.

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    In the woods, the ripples of the wind are frozen solid. The ice looks like a babbling creek, frozen in time. Underneath the cold hard ice, ghostly air bubbles, trapped in an icy purgatory, wait for a thaw to be free.

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  • A Time of Firsts

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    It is a time of firsts, the first egg of the New Year, one I gathered yesterday morning. Do I eat it? Do I sell it? Do I hatch it? The possibilities are endless if you let your mind go wild.

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    The first bread of the New Year, baked yesterday morning. One loaf is already gone. Each baking is an opportunity to experiment. One loaf is made with commercial yeast, the other with my levain. Are my loaves good enough to sell at this year’s farmers markets? They are getting there.

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    The first soybean soaking for the first tofu of the year. This cold snap and the first tofu making coincided to let me test if beans soak better under a trickle of running water. I’ve been tempted to try it before, but it seems wasteful so I haven’t. Since I need to let the water run anyway, I’ll grab the chance and try it. I like the idea of beans soaking under a slow stream of water for hours and hours to wash away their sins all night long. Maybe I can call the resulting tofu Pureland Tofu, or Jesus Saves Tofu, you know, to capture that market.