a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Reflections

  • Kohlrabi at Sunset

    EveningKohlrabiA

    Crowds gather along the shores to watch the evening sun set on the ocean, to see the fading light pull its glow over the islands and waves. Who rushes into the garden to see the sun slip its last rays through the kohlrabi? The evening sun makes the kohlrabi seem even more sensual. Could these possibly be the first photos ever posted of kohlrabi at sunset? I did several queries and didn’t find a single picture of a kohlrabi lit by the setting sun.

    There is a dearth of photos of vegetables glowing in the setting sun. No photos of cabbage, carrots, rubystreaks, or dried bean pods at twilight. During my search, I did learn that in Vermont, the night before Halloween is called Cabbage Night. Children go out into the fields to collect rotten vegetables, so that when they go trick or treating, they can toss the rotten vegetables at those who don’t give them a treat. Hopefully they leave the kohlrabi behind. A spoiled kohlrabi will crack a skull wide open.

    Maybe if they went out before sunset and saw how beautiful vegetable plants are when lit by the evening sun’s gentle rays, they wouldn’t think of throwing rotten vegetables.

    I better stop telling how beautiful vegetable plants are before there are hoards of photo snapping tourists, lined outside the gate, clambering to get in to photograph the vegetables at sunset.

    EveningKohlrabiB
    EveningCabbage
    EveningCarrots
    EveningRubyStreaks
    EveningBeanPod

  • A Season of Fiery Reds

    FallLeaf
    SkunkyOnNest

    Fall is the time of brilliant reds. On a sunny day, it looks like the leaves are on fire. I’m not sure the chickens are impressed. Many of them have combs redder and more brilliant than any leaf can dream of being.

    FallMaplesA
    SkunkysMomAndNewChicks

    Skunky’s mother is too busy rearing her next brood to worry about the fall leaves. And Tangerine and her chicks scamper around my feet when I split wood. You have to swing your ax carefully when you have a mother hen and her chicks running around at your feet.

    TangerineAndChicksChopWood
    TurningMaples
    BridgeA

    A warm, sunny fall day is made for building new bridges. There was a narrow bridge here until a tree came down and split it in two. The replacement bridge is twice as wide and much stronger, a perfect bridge to ford the ravine to enter the western woods on the other side. You can’t see them, but there are chickens in the ravine, scratching in the muddy waters in search of good things to eat. The forest on the other side is a favorite hunting ground of the chickens. Now, they’ll have an easy bridge to cross the ravine, and so will BB on his rabbit hunts.

    BridgeB

  • The Color of Warmth

    ColorOfWarmthA

    For me, this is the color of warmth. On a future day when a cold wind is blowing out of the north, this wood will keep us warm. The tree came down a year ago. Now I’m splitting it to stack for next year. Each piece, as it burns, will burn in its own way, casting its own warm glow. No two pieces burn the same way.

    There is evidence of humans burning wood nearly two millions years ago. More than a million years ago, our distant, distant, distant ancestors, some 80,000 generations ago, gathered wood, thinking this is the color of warmth too.

    ColorOfWarmthB

  • Already a Memory

    WoodStoveBurning

    Nothing says summer is over than a fire in the wood stove. Yesterday, to take the chill off, I lit a fire in the wood stove. Summer is over when the hubbard squash are ready to eat. Summer is over when the vine maples turn crimson. In July, summer seemed like it would go on forever. Rain was a distant memory. I began to question if it ever got cold in the Pacific Northwest. Ha! The joke was on me. With a fire crackling in the wood stove, summer is now the memory.

    HubbardSquash
    VineMaplesTurning

  • The Mystery of the Four Pullet Eggs

    WhirligigInAFence

    Every day something special happens. Is it the amusing whirligig stuck in the fence I found this morning? Maybe it’s the bee having a feast on the sunflower. What goes through a bee’s mind when it finds a sunflower this large? “Oh my god! Oh my god! Look at that flower!” Is that what it shrieks when it buzzes around it? “The bees at the hive will never believe me when I tell them how big this flower is!”

    SunFlowerInSeptember
    BeeOnSunflower
    SpecialOnNest

    Or maybe the special moment of the day is spotting Special on her nest, laying an egg? It’s always special spotting her, but the special highlight of the day was finding four pullet eggs in a nest. I hadn’t checked the three nests in the woodshed for a while, and today when I looked, four olive colored pullet eggs were waiting for me in one of the nests. A hen hatched this spring has started to lay eggs. These are clearly eggs from the same hen. The mystery is which young hen is it?

    FourPulletEggs