a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: Reflections

What’s Old Is New Again

From the The Farmer’s Friend at the Bow Little Market, I purchased this old pitchfork. It should come in handy for cleaning the chicken roosts, turning compost, and gathering hay. The only mark on it is “I-D-L Top” stamped on the handle. There are no manufacturer’s mark on the tines

Even though I’m calling it a pitch fork, it may be a dung fork.

Pitchforks typically have only two, three or four tines while dung forks have four or five, other types of fork even up to ten tines with different lengths and spacing depending on purpose (Pitchfork – Wikipedia).

It could also be a straw or silage fork.

The number of tines would mostly depend on personal preference and the job it is being used for. Over the years most forks have been made with two to five tines. The two and three tines forks (the ones most commonly referred to as pitchforks) were used for loose hay, straw, and bundles of grain. In fact they are sometimes referred to as bundle forks. The four and five tine forks are in fact manure forks and were made for that purpose. Other forks of six or more tines have been made for silage, potatoes, beets, etc. Even saw one listed as a compost fork recently (hobartwelders.com).

In any case, the fork is now back at work, helping out at a man and his hoe®.

July 31, 2014
The Cows I Love
Biking to the post office this afternoon I saw that the cows I love were back in the main pasture. After disappearing early this year, I learned that the farmer has cancer and that the cows were at his brother’s place. They returned in June and have been grazing the pasture on the other side of the barn. Today they are back on the main pasture near the road.

I stopped to enjoy them and the calves were curious as to what or who I was. Cows are very aware of their surroundings. You can’t sneak up on a cow. And as peaceful as they seem, cows are very strong and deserve respect. On Monday, a herd of 20 cows in Austria killed a German hiker. Evidently the cows were upset at her dog and rushed her.

Just like a mother hen, a mother cow will do most anything to protect her calves if she feels they are threatened.
July 29, 2014
Tar Sands – Breathtaking Destruction

Alex MacLean and Dan Grossman are documenting what the oil companies are doing to the forest and bogs of Alberta as they strip the land to retrieve oil from the tar sands. You can read about their project at Tar Sands Truth. The environmental destruction happening in Alberta is hard to comprehend. It makes you wonder what planet earth is going to look like in fifty years.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQ1fNnVs2iM?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360]

How does this have anything to do with raising chickens and growing produce at a man and his hoe®? We are all connected, no matter how distant we might be from each other. The air that blows over the tar sands of Alberta eventually blows over you and me. The mindset that allows such environmental degradation is a mindset that affects all of us. By saying that it is OK to do that over there, we have no right to say you can’t do it where I am.

People will be needing to live on this planet a hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, ten thousand years from now, a hundred thousand years from now, a million years from now. They will need pure water, pure air, pure soil to live. How are they going to have these things if this is what we keep doing to our tiny planet? Our economic and political systems are set up to just look at a few months to a few years ahead. But we need economic and political systems that think far, far, far into the future.

July 21, 2014
Rare Salmobbit Discovered

Picking baby kale for Tweets Café is always fun. This week there are baby kale, baby chard, baby arugula, and ruby streaks. Stop by at Tweets this weekend and enjoy a salad with produce picked today from a man and his hoe®.

And while you are at Tweets, pop next door to the Edison Eye and check out this art by Mandy. What is it? A Salmobbit? You never know what you’ll see in off the beaten path Edison.

July 17, 2014
Into the Woods

On a hot summer day, a mother hen and her chicks find a cool spot in the mulch under Iris plants. I find relief from the heat in the woods. What do chickens make of these trees? They often scratch for food on the forest floor. Do they look up and marvel at the towering trees?

July 15, 2014