a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Reflections

  • Ice is Alive

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    If you watch long enough, you can see needle ice growing out of the ground. It’s as if it’s alive. The hoarfrost grows too, prickling the leaves and branches. December cold turns nature into a fairyland of ice.

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  • Burn the Bees

    Every so often I read something that strikes me as odd. Maybe I should stop reading. I was reading a CNN article The Old Man and the Bee by John D. Sutter. The article is about vanishing bees and a Robbin Thorp, a retired entomologist from University of California-Davis, who has been obsessed with Franklin’s bumblebee, a bumblebee that has become extremely rare.

    In the article, John Sutter visits Windset Farms in British Columbia. The farm grows peppers and tomatoes in green houses that cover many acres. They used to hand pollinate the crops, but they now use bumblebees. The farm hires bumblebees which buzz about pollinating the crops from sunup to sundown. It all sounds nice and peachy, but then I read this line:

    … the bees are raised only for mass production and their colonies are incinerated after eight weeks of work …

    It made me pause. Did I read that right? The bee colonies are incinerated? I’ve reached out to Windset Farms by phone and by leaving a question on their Talk to Us web page. I haven’t heard back from them yet about their bee incineration practices. I suppose it is to prevent the bees from spreading any diseases or pests into the environment. The bees aren’t native to British Columbia, but are shipped in from commercial bee operations 2,000 miles away. It also sounds like a convenient way to treat a tireless workforce. Instead of paying them when they have finished their work, burn them to smithereens. That sure cuts down on payroll and lowers expenses.

    In the video below, Windset Farms describes how they use bumblebees to pollinate their tomatoes. “We let nature take it’s course, and let the bumblebees do the work for us,” Mike Brown, Senior Tomato Grower says, but he doesn’t mention that the thanks the bumblebees get for doing this work is being burnt to a crisp.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfISTtYHJAA&w=640&h=360]

    I heard back from Windset Farms. They do not incinerate the bees themselves. They use them for eight weeks and ship them back to their supplier in Ontario who incinerates them.

  • Book of Dreams

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    The snow has been falling off and on all day. A good day to snuggle up with my book of dreams which arrived today, December’s Japan Railroads Timetable. Oh, if you’re concerned about the barcode label smack on the train on the cover, the label says that you can take it off without damaging the book. That’s considerate that they let you know that trying to peel off the label won’t mar your dream book.

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    At over 1,000 pages, it is loaded with information. It has maps of all the JR lines from the very south to the very north of Japan listing all the stations as well as many bus and ferry lines.

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    There are detailed train station guides of major stations showing the levels and platforms used by different train lines. With these guides you can quickly determine that if you get off from car 3 instead of the car 6 you are in, you’ll be right by the stairway or escalator to take you to the level and platform you need to make that two minute connection.

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    The timetables are invaluable for deciding which train to take to where you want to go.

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    The timetable is also chuck full of mysteries. For example, it warns you when a train arrives even one minute later or earlier on some days. In the example here on page 44, the Komachi 25 bound for Akita, arrives 4 to 7 minutes later on December 28 through 31, and 3 to 9 minutes later on January 1 through 4. What it doesn’t explain is why. In this case it must be on account of the New Years holidays, but why does the Kodama 753 train, listed on page 9, arrive in Kokura one minute early on February 2 and 9 at 21:26 instead of the usual 21:27? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If you need one additional minute in Kokura, those are the days to travel.

  • Geese Fall as Thick as Snow

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    The snow geese are back in full. From a distance their flocks look like snow banks. With flocks this large, streams of geese fly in and fly off nonstop. You can watch them for hours and never see them crash into each other.

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    How do they do that? Fly so close their wingtips practically touch but never collide? Imagine riding in a jet and coming into a landing with hundreds of other jets just feet away and all landing without bumping into each other. That would be a plane ride that would take your breath away.

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  • Like a Cloud

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    What does homemade tofu taste like? Hmm, that’s a good question. I was thinking how to answer that yesterday when I looked up and saw my answer floating by in the blue autumn sky. Fresh, homemade tofu tastes like a cloud.

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    The best time to eat it is when it is fresh out of the press, floating in cool water, warm and fluffy inside like white clouds floating through the blue sky.

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    On cold nights, there is nothing better than filling a pot with vegetables, chunks of fresh tofu, and pork, and letting it simmer on your wood stove for several hours.

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    Miasa 美朝 and her chicks love it cold. The whole family gathers around to make a communal meal out of blocks of fresh tofu. The mothers and chicks keep an eye out for me. When they see me heading out to the cottage to make tofu, they stay nearby, hoping to get a feast of fresh okara (the soybean mash leftover from making tofu) and tofu.