a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • It’s a Colorful World

    ColorfulDayA

    The bright summer sun paints the garden with vivid colors. There is no sense of winter’s gloom anywhere today. Nothing but pure light and color everywhere I look. The sun is such an amazing ball of fire. You can sit in front of a wood stove and feel it’s heat in the room. Step back thirty or forty feet and you feel nothing. Think of the largest bonfire you can imagine. How far away can you feel it’s heat? Fifty feet? A Hundred feet? How big a fire do you need to feel it a mile or two away? What about a fire you could feel from a hundred miles away? It would be massive. Now imagine how big a fireball the sun has to be to bathe us in so much light and warmth from 93 million miles away. We are so lucky to live on such a wonderful planet, bathed in light and warmth.

    ColorfulDayB
    ColorfulDayC
    ColorfulDayD
    ColorfulDayE
    ColorfulDayF
    ColorfulDayG
    ColorfulDayH

    Margaret’s chicks hatched today. I walked into the nursery this morning and heard her growl when I got close to her nursery pen. That’s a clear sign that a mother hen has chicks. She’s warning them that danger is near, and to hide and be quiet. Looking at the brilliant, sun like eggs the chickens here lay, it’s easy to see how these golden globes could turn into healthy chicks.

    ColorfulDayI

  • Round and Round It Goes

    EndOfCompostB

    The last of the compost is off to the vegetable beds … and the chickens are having a hay day with the rest. If they could, chickens would spend all day in a compost bin. There are too many good things for them to eat.

    EndOfCompostA
    EndOfCompostC

    Before you know it, the compost will turn into delicious vegetables, some of which will end back in another compost pile, and round and round it goes. It makes you wonder if individual atoms ponder what they’re in now. Am I in a plant? Am I in an animal? A spec in the ground? Where am I? Imagine how many different organisms, say an individual nitrogen atom has been in over the last 450 million years since plants first appeared. And before then, fused inside supernovas from oxygen and hydrogen, and blasted out through space throughout the universe, where all have the nitrogen atoms travelled that are in the vegetables you eat? They’ve been on the move for billions of years. You munching them isn’t going to stop them from moving.

    EndOfCompostD
    EndOfCompostE

    With the compost bin empty, it’s time to gather matter for the next compost pile. There is an endless supply of grasses and brush, fallen leaves and twigs, and chickens wanting to lend a claw.

    EndOfCompostF
    EndOfCompostG

  • After a Morning Rain

    AfterTheRainA

    Overnight thunderstorms and a morning shower gave the daisies a refreshing shower. What is it about lingering raindrops on flower petals and leaves that make us smile? What about the chickens? When they look up and see raindrops dripping off the flowers and leaves, do they feel anything? Hard to imagine that most chickens never even see a flower let alone a raindrop. How did we get to this point to think that chickens don’t need to see flowers or see raindrops?

    AfterTheRainB
    AfterTheRainC
    AfterTheRainD
    AfterTheRainE

  • Never Too Many Babies

    HowTheGardenGrowsA

    The vegetable beds are full of babies: baby corn, baby pumpkins, not so baby radishes, baby chard, baby kale. Baby vegetables grow up faster than human children so you have less time to enjoy them. Fortunately, you can plant many, many, many more baby vegetables. And, unlike human children, you can eat baby vegetables. Baby humans you can just hug, kiss, and tickle.

    HowTheGardenGrowsB
    HowTheGardenGrowsC
    HowTheGardenGrowsD
    HowTheGardenGrowsE

  • Summer Blues Bring Happiness

    SummerTimeBluesA

    It’s impossible to be sad when the summer blues are here. Even on cloudy days, you can see blue skies in these hydrangea flowers. Their centers look like baby suns, beaming happiness no matter what the weather; their white veins, wispy cirrus clouds, floating weightlessly across endless blue sky petals.

    SummerTimeBluesB
    SummerTimeBluesC