a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • The Straight and Narrow

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    What do plants think when we plant them in straight rows? In the wild, plants never end up that way, all lined up, in rows that march on to the horizon. When they pop up and see all their siblings lined up in front and back of them, do they wonder how the heck that happened? Does it drive them nuts?

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    While planting French breakfast radishes, I came across this curved twig, which turned out to be the perfect radish planting tool. The curved tip made it easy to poke holes for the radish seeds. This one is a keeper.

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    The previous radishes which used to call that bed home are on their way to the compost bin. Radishes grow to be rather large plants with flower stalks that reach three feet and higher. One plant will put out hundreds of pointy seed pods and thousands of seeds. With so many seeds, it’s a wonder the world isn’t one big radish field.

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  • You Are My Sunshine

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    You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
    you make me happy, when skies are grey …

    Sunshine made me happy when I caught her checking out a nest. She didn’t know how funny she looked, standing apprehensively on one foot as she deliberated whether to use the nest or not.

    This swelling Artemis melon also makes me happy. It hangs like a green moon in a cloud of melon vines. For happiness, live among the chickens and plants. They’ll keep you entertained and humming a song.

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  • Back in the Land of the Wet

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    We are back in the land of the wet. Saturday’s storm blew away the sun with enough force to topple trees, knock down climbing beans, and floor rows of corn. It also whipped the electric lines from here to kingdom come. The power company says our power will be restored by Tuesday night.

    I got some of the sunflowers upright again, and while I cleared out the fallen beans, filling a basket with green beans and a wheelbarrow full of leaves and vines for the compost, a wild bee quickly found the upright sunflowers as if there had been no storm at all. Where did that bee pass the storm? Warm and snug in its burrow? Or did the storm blow it in from the San Juan islands or even Vancouver Island?

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  • Skunky at the End of August … Vogue in the Future?

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    Nearly five months ago, at the beginning of April, Skunky was an adorable chick who could easily fit in my palm. She’s a stunning hen now, maybe a month away from laying her first egg.

    She is so elegant, I could see her on the cover of Vogue. It would be a bestseller. First hen to ever grace the cover of Vogue. The press would go nuts. There’d be a line of reporters from the gate out to the road, and up the hill, and down the other side. They’d throw their drones up in the air to swoop around until they spotted Skunky. They’d push and shove and knock the fence down. Skunky and the other chickens would shriek and fly off into the woods, never to be seen again.

    Maybe it’s best that Skunky not be on the cover of Vogue. She’ll do better without all the attention.

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  • If a Woodpecker and a Chicken …

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    If a woodpecker and a chicken fell in love, this is what their children would look like. The turken chick that Madge hatched is mostly black with a white face and white trim on its wings. When it walks around, it looks more like a woodpecker than a chicken. Is it a male or female? I don’t know. It’s a special chick and I’m very curious what it will look like when it grows up.

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