a man and his hoe

My garden has a sneaky way of absconding with my tools. A few days ago, while putting up a trellis for peas and beans, a bed of greens hid a pair of pliers so well, I haven’t found them yet. But I lucked out today. While preparing a bed for planting, the folding yardstick I’d been looking for since fall showed up. It pays to weed. You never know what precious item the garden stole, the garden will decide to give back.

Five year old Cognac looks as beautiful as ever. She’s still laying beautiful eggs as dark as her neck.

The kale are blooming. Some have sent flower stalks seven feet up toward the blue sky. Seven foot tall flower stalks properly don’t come to mind when you buy kale in the produce section, but this is kale’s destiny, glorious blooms lifted high into the sky.

All is well when potatoes are growing. Potatoes are among the most beautiful of vegetables. I’m surprised city parks don’t plant beds of potatoes. Not only would the plants grace the parks with beauty and flowers, at the end of the season, city parks could have potato digging parties.

All is well when you have interesting beans to plant. These are Jacob’s Cattle Beans, so called because their color and patterns reminded New Englander’s of the Biblical story of Jacob and the spotted calf. Legend has it that they were a gift from Maine’s Passamaquoddy Indians to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine. I’ve also read that they were brought to New England from Germany. Other names for them that I’ve found are Trout bean, Anasazi bean, Aztec bean, Cave bean, and New Mexico appaloosa bean.

All is well when Cognac, our five year old Maran lays an egg. Hers is the dark one on the right. She laid an egg a few days ago too.

Here lie the dearest of friends. We buried our dear BB along with the ashes of his brother, Echo, on Monday, by the garden gate, a place they often sat, waiting for us to return when we went away. The dearest of friends I have ever known. For ten years they graced our lives. No friends brought more happiness than these two.

Echo passed away last May, and on Monday, BB went to sleep for the very last time. We were fortunate to have these two share their joy with us since March of 2006. May you have friends who bring you such joy.

Bicycling home from the Bow Post Office this morning, I came across this mysterious sight on the climb up Bow Hill. A rock, a pair of boots, and a half-drunk latte. The boots and latte cup were laid too neatly to have tumbled out of a passing car. Maybe the shoes are those of someone who rose into the heavens when the rapture happened during the night. Out of everyone one earth, only one was raptured, which is why the only person who noticed it had happened is me, who came across the evidence while pedaling up Bow Hill Road. Though, if the shoes are of someone who was raptured, where are their clothes? Maybe their soul was so pure, they sensed the momentous occasion was at hand, and set out before the crack of dawn, wearing only their shoes, knowing they wouldn’t need clothes any more.

But the rock? What to make of it? It’s a mystery. Probably a puzzle I will take to my grave. I moved the boots, rock, and latte cup further away from the road.

Further up the road, more evidence that something momentous has happened. A hieroglyph of a fish god on the road. It’s actually a mark pointing to where the Olympic Pipeline, an oil line, is buried underneath the road. But it does look like an Aborigine from ten thousand years ago time traveled to Bow Hill during the night and painted a hieroglyph on the road.