every day is a good day
And the Oscar goes to … is it SalmonBerry in “Vermillion and Yellow”, Pepper in “Pepper Lays an Egg”, the Pear Buds in “Like Peas in a Pod”, the Daffodils in “Dancing Lemons”, the Plum Blossoms in “Fifty Shades of Pink”, or the Lilac Buds in “Together for Now”? Envelope please!
Ten days and the arugula seeds have sprouted and are sticking their first leaves above the soft earth. What do leaves feel when they first poke out of the earth, breathe the air, and feel the sun’s rays? Is it as momentous as a baby’s first breathe, a chick’s first peep?
In about ten days the cherry buds will open and fill the air with their powder fresh fragrance. The quiet tree will buzz with thousands of bees. That’s momentous.
The United Nations Environment Programme reported on February 26 that 40% of invertebrate pollinators such as bees and butterflies were in danger of going instinct. It’s so sad what we humans are doing to this amazing world. We are so incredibly lucky to have an earth so full of life. Every species, no matter how small or insignificant they seem to us, is precious, an important thread in the fabric of life so complex we can’t begin to fathom. We keep plucking these threads of life and throwing them aside, unaware that at some point, the web of life we depend on will be too fragile to keep us alive.
Special is being courted, but she’s far more interested in seeing what juicy morsels she can dig up in the stream than she is by the young rooster’s performance. Chickens enjoy hunting in streams. It’s not something you read about in books about chickens is it? “Be sure and provide chickens with a hunting stream.” Have you ever read that? Actually, you rarely read that chickens are adept hunters. I’m glad they are small birds. We’d be on their menu if they were giants.
Bit by bit, we’re preparing for next winter. There is a slow, steady beauty to cutting wood and stacking it. You spend all spring and summer cutting and stacking it, only to slowly tear down the stacks through fall and winter.
We had a surprise this afternoon when we accidentally uncovered a wintering northwestern salamander. Before covering it up again, I took a picture. With the pond and woods, there seem to be plenty of these salamanders around. It’s always a joy to see one.
So many of the fruits we love to eat are so beautiful long before they become fruits. The plum branches we pruned bloomed when we brought them indoors. Soon they will be blooming outdoors too.
I’m pushing it, planting vegetables already. But in the garden I see the new leaves of last year’s vegetables which seeded: baby leaves of ruby streaks and kale poking out of the ground. If those seeds are sprouting, with luck the rows of kohlrabi I planted this afternoon will sprout too.
The earth is alive with worms, bugs, and tiny winged things. Under the microscope this afternoon I saw a million creatures in a drop of soil: bacteria, fungi, amoebae, and nematodes. I’ve got to figure out how to hover over the delicate soil so I can weed and plant without compressing it. It is so full of life, that I take one step and a million creatures gasp under the weight of my foot, “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Helium wings? Zip lines strung a few feet above the earth so I can fly over it without putting any weight on the soft earth? Tilling is madness when your soil is alive. The earthworms, and bugs, and fungi, and bacteria, and nematodes, and micro arthropods fluff the soil with all their burrowing and scurrying about and chasing after each other, that the soil is airier and lighter than any tilling could possibly accomplish.
A frosty morning after a clear night. Even the daffodil leaves are dusted with frost, giving their green leaves a muted hue.
Where do branches come from? Split a tree apart and it’s clear they come from the core. So when you look up at a tree and gaze at its branches, you can picture them penetrating to the core of the tree. That’s where branches come from.
Where branches come from isn’t on the minds of these hens. They’re busy looking for good things to eat in the warming spring earth. I saw a garden snake slithering through the brush today. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a garden snake in February before.