a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • Compost Helpers

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    Gone for most of yesterday and all night, we returned this morning to find the compost bin was overheating. It was up to 150ºF (65.5ºC), and at temperatures above that, the beneficial organisms die off. Miasa-hime brought her chicks over to help when she saw I was turning over the compost pile. I’m pretty thorough when I do this, taking the pile apart and rebuilding it by putting the parts that were on the outside in the middle, and putting the hot parts on the outside, and fluffing it all up so that air gets into all parts of the pile. Plants are counting on me supplying them with billions and billions of aerobic bacteria and fungi when the compost is done.

    It’s an opportunity for Miasa-hime and her chicks to find plenty of good things to eat. There are so many tiny creatures stirring about in the compost, the chicks have a feast. If they miss something, she’ll point it out to them.

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  • Phft … That’s All Live Is

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    On the way home from an errand I had to stop to enjoy these clouds billowing up over the Cascade Mountains. Clouds are the ultimate performance artists. They create these massive works of art, and then, phft, they’re gone. They come and go so frequently, we don’t even think about it.

    To the earth, we’re just a phft too. To an earth that is 4 billion years old, a person who lives a hundred years is as significant as something that lasts 90 seconds for someone who lives a hundred years. Who cares about something that flits around for just 90 seconds?

    When you think about it that way, our lives come and go so quickly, in the grand scheme of things, they have no meaning. Each one of us is just a phft. And that’s a good thing. It’s liberating to know we don’t matter. We’re free to be happy and enjoy life. We don’t have to waste our time building a legacy, accumulating things that in the long run don’t mean a thing, trying to impress the others. We can live like butterflies. All that’s important is what we are doing minute by minute, enjoying all the wonderful phfts that pass our way. We’re as transitory as puffy clouds.

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  • Eggs for Slough Food

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    Gathering and putting together the eggs for Slough Food each week is never dull. Is Cognac going to lay one of her special dark eggs? What about Svenda and her lovely tan eggs?

    I usually deliver two dozen eggs to Slough Food on Friday afternoons. If you visit Edison on Saturday, chances are good you can pick some up. You’ll always know how fresh they are. The date they are laid is on the cartons, and each egg is dated too.

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  • Will It Grow?

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    Will it grow? It’s a question I ask everytime I push a seed into the ground. Nine days ago, I planted a pound of shirohana beans. Yesterday, I got my answer. Rising out of the ground were new leaves. I looked and found more and more beans unfolding their first leaves from inside beans which were splitting open. It’s amazing to think that these beans, in fact all of life on earth, can trace its roots back four billion years. We are all so different now, and yet we all have the same ancestors. Even these new beans sprouting out of the soil and you reading this article share a distant mother.

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  • With the Help of Wet Weather

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    It’s not raining, it’s not pouring, it’s just misting, as if we’re up in the clouds. It’s fitting weather for iris and pansies to bloom, and for potatoes to grow. The row of purple potatoes I planted in March are high enough to mound. They are growing vigorously. The potatoes I planted in earl April are coming along nicely, and the ones I planted at the end of April are starting to sprout.

    The misty weather is also good for catching slugs. Usually they come out after I’ve gone to bed. It’s like they are waiting for the bedroom lights to go out before they venture out of their daytime hiding places. But when it is misty like today, they come out in droves in midday. I feel bad hunting them down with a pair of scissors. Snip, snip, I go, cutting them in two and sending them off to an early death. The potatoes and radishes and cabbage and lettuce and kale cheer me on. Snip, snip, snip.

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