I was in the cabin making tofu yesterday on a warm, sunny, early fall day. Outside, two month old chicks were chirping in the brush. I couldn’t see them, but I could see the comfrey leaves shaking as they hunted and sang. Their chirps are so melodic that young chicks sound like a flock of song birds. I listened to their happy songs as I squeezed warm soy milk to make tofu.

Fall is a great time for tofu, especially if you can get it fresh and warm out of the press. This is when tofu tastes the best, before it is chilled. I should call this virgin tofu. If you want warm, virgin tofu, let me know. I can schedule it so that I take it out of the press when you arrive.

The state requires that I chill the tofu down to 70ºF (21ºC) within two hours. It comes out of the press very warm, around 160ºC (71ºC). I did a test yesterday, and it was down to 68ºF (20ºC) within two hours, and down to 52º (11ºC) within four. The state says it should be down to 41ºF (5ºC) within six. This is to ensure that the tofu stays safe to eat. This week I’ll be chilling the tofu in ice water to see if I can get it down to 41ºF (5ºC) quickly.

These state requirements assume that no one is eating fresh, hot tofu, right out of the press, which is how it should really be eaten. The assumption is that most people will be eating days old tofu they pick up in a supermarket. When you pick up tofu in a store, you have no idea when it was made. Which explains why so many people are so sad in this modern, convenient world. They aren’t eating fresh tofu. No wonder they’re sad.

When I was a child in our small town in Japan, the local tofu makers would get up at four in the morning to make that morning’s tofu. Then they would bicycle around the neighborhoods, blowing a soft horn, to let you know they were nearby so you could buy your morning tofu. It’s not a sound you hear in many neighborhoods anymore. You can see what this was like in the video below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_1IG1xKK5c&w=854&h=480]

There is something new every day. Even if you think there isn’t, during the night while you slept, the sun has taken you about 7 million kilometers, over 4 million miles, from where you were when you went to bed. Every morning you wake up in a new spot in the universe, millions of miles away from where you were yesterday, and there is no going back. Or as they say, “To infinity and beyond!”

Not as dramatic, but 15 baby chicks I ordered arrived this morning. It has been many years since I’ve ordered live chicks, but I wanted to add Brown Cornish chickens to my flock and have not been able to find a reliable source for fertile Brown Cornish eggs.

Since I had two broody hens, both sitting on wooden eggs, I ordered the chicks, and this morning, as soon as they arrived, I carefully placed them under the two hens. It was a lesson again as to why every chick deserves … actually every chick craves a mother. The 15 chicks were peeping their heads off when I arrived at the post office just after 7 a.m. to pick them up. They peeped all the way home. But as soon as I placed them under their respective mothers, all peeping ceased. Later this afternoon, I found the chicks singing. When little chicks are happy, they make a singing, chirping sound which you can hear in the video below:

[wpvideo u2p184KZ]

I’ve been checking on them throughout the day, and the two mothers have taken well to their new chicks, and the baby chicks are happy as can be. It’s a fallacy that baby chicks don’t need a mother. Oh, they’ll get by and grow up, but all that frantic peeping they do when they are tiny is them crying out for a mother who never comes.

Also at the post office this morning was the new tofu press I ordered from Earth First Innovations. The sturdy press has a wooden handle and a plunger that you hold down with sturdy rubber bands to press your tofu.

The timing was perfect. I was making tofu this morning. After filling up the press with curds, I pulled down the handle and secured it with two rubber bands. Thirty minutes later, I had a nice block of tofu.

So much happens in one day, it’s hard to keep track. Pepper has moved to laying her eggs in a nest in the chicken yard instead of in the nests near the garden.

The eggplants are coming along. In a week or two, I should have some ready for Bow Little Market. Ena 枝那 is exhausted watching me weeding.

The Roma tomatoes are turning red. Hopefully, enough will be red to have some for Thursday, the 21st’s Bow Little Market. And why is Sven resting in a nest in the middle of the afternoon?

Now both of the dogs are exhausted from watching me weed. I should be more tired than them. Some days I think I would rather be a dog, as long as I had an owner like me.

Old Billy enjoys a quiet moment with one of the older hens, Daisy. While Miasa-Hime 美朝姫 has taken to laying eggs in the nests near the garden where Pepper used to lay eggs.

And King Richard and his hens are going through what is left of the last compost pile. Just a few of thing things that happened today. I don’t have pictures of the bald eagle which flew low overhead and flew off when I yelled at it, nor pictures of the great blue heron who flew in to go fishing at the pond. There is never a boring moment here.

Raise chickens and from time to time they surprise you. Today I discovered that one of the chickens had deposited a dropping perfectly on a fallen leave. Did she do this intentionally? What are the chances of a chicken dropping landing perfectly in the middle of a leaf? If she did it intentionally, what is the message? Was it just for art’s sake, or to make it easier to clean up?

If you don’t like pausing to think, seeing wondrous things, or being surprised, don’t raise chickens.

Peace, it’s all we want.