every day is a good day
A gust of wind this morning filled the air with swirling petals … a blizzard on a spring morning. Petal blizzards. No need to bundle up, and put on a coat, and a scarf, and a hat.
Cherry blossoms are so fleeting. They only last a week or two. They’re so fleeting, there’s no time to be sad.
On this solstice day, the pears open their flowers.
On this solstice day, Tangerine checks to see if the old doghouse is good for laying eggs.
On this solstice day, a potato wakes from its long winter’s sleep. It’s a gentle reminder that I can start planting potatoes.
On this solstice day, Midge helps me with the weeding. I weed, she helps herself to all the worms.
On this solstice day, Sven is there to guard the hens as they join Midge to help me with the weeding.
On this solstice day, the skunk cabbage fill the spring air with their skunky perfume.
So much happens in just one day, it’s enough to make your head spin around. Biking home, I noticed a “No Trespassing” in the middle of a flooded field. Is trespassing really a problem in this case? Maybe people are launching boats to go duck hunting in the field.
Nature is the consummate producer of disposable items. One wind storm and a thousand used-once branches come flying out of the trees. The good thing about the items nature throws away is that they are all compostable.
The maples are putting out this year’s leaves. In six to eight months, they’ll be worn out and falling to the ground. Better enjoy them why I can.
There’s less time to enjoy the plum, cherry, and pear blossoms. A few weeks and they will be just a memory.
From dust bathing hens come the world’s most delicious eggs. These won’t last but a few days.
So much happens every day, that it’s taken me ten years to notice these wild cherry roots growing down an old cedar stump. Ten years! And I’ve walked by this cedar stump a million times. I wouldn’t have noticed them either if my husband hadn’t asked me to help him gather up fallen branches. So if someone asks you to help them do a little chore, don’t say no, you might see something worth seeing that you’ve missed for ten years.
How much does a chicken poop in a night? I know it’s a question that has crossed your mind many times. Here’s the answer: A Handful. The picture above is proof. There is a single chicken who spends its nights, not on the roost with the other chickens, but in this nest. Every morning guess who has to clean it up?
Yup, in just one night, a chicken will fill your hand full of poop if you hold it under it’s butt, so don’t. That’s my advice.
We do all this work, and then we die. At times you wonder what the point is. We might as well die now and be done with it. But then the plum tree blooms, and the bees fly onto the blossoms, and the sun is shining, and it is like, this is paradise, who would want to die now? I don’t believe in heaven, but even if I did, it wouldn’t be nicer than this, so what would be the point of dying anyway?
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The bee is in no hurry to die. From flower to flower to goes. On a plum tree, the flowers are so close together, it doesn’t even need to fly. There’s one good drink of nectar after another. I’m watching something far more amazing than anything humans do. Watch the bee insert its long tongue into the flowers. Look at it’s antennae feel its way around. Those little wings, they look like a joke, and yet they carry the bee safely home.
And in the garden, the lovage is out. I’ll wait to die until I’ve at least tasted this season’s lovage. And then there will be one more amazing thing, and another, and another. Who knows, with so many amazing things to see, I may live to be over a hundred.