a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • To Lay a Good Egg Demands Beauty

    CherryBlossoms150312

    You might not think that chickens need cherry blossoms to lay a good egg, but they do. Chickens have eyes designed to see more colors than we can. Housing them in drab housing without being able to see the blue sky or shimmering cherry blossoms, is beneath their dignity. Chickens need surroundings full of beauty. Their extraordinary eyesight demands it.

    MiAsa150312

    MiasasEggThis is MiAsa-Hime美朝姫and the egg she laid today. She comes across as poised and gentle, but of all the hens, she has a voice that drowns out all others.
    NijiHime150312

    NijiHimesEggNiji-Hime虹姫is one of the Americauna orphans we got last spring. When another hen tries to sit in her nest, she lets out a dinosaur screech that makes your blood curdle. She even hunkers down, like a lizard waiting to pounce.
    UngetsuHime

    UngetsuHimeseggAnd this is elegant Ungetsu-Hime雲月姫 and the egg she laid today. She’s changed nests. Hens do that. They’ll use one nest for awhile, and then get bored with it, and switch to another. Chickens need variety. They need to be able to stretch out in a sunny patch of dirt, watch the cherry blossoms flutter in the wind, and follow the petals as they float down to the ground. You can’t have good eggs without endless beauty to entertain the hens.

  • Elegant Tangerine

    Tangerine20150311A

    Some hens are so elegant. Tangerine is such a hen. The coloring on her neck feathers make it look like she’s wearing a fringed cape. Her stylish comb gives her a touch of class. So if you ever buy some of my eggs, either at Tweets Café, or at Slough Food, or from me, and see “Tangerine” written on the egg, this is the hen which laid that egg. When you cook and serve one of her eggs, put it in a beautiful dish. Tangerine’s eggs deserve the finest china.

    Tangerine20150311B
    Tangerine20150311C

  • Art Happens Despite What We Do

    20150310ArtWoodPieces

    An art installation isn’t the intention when we trim a maple tree. But the jumble of branches and twigs does look like an art installation destined for a museum. I could see art critics pondering the meaning of all these branches and twigs, with some pontificating on the significance of that branch being on top of this branch.

    20150310ArtLichen

    One thing worth pondering is the beauty of lichen. Some consider lichen to be a miniature ecosystem. They are complex structures of fungi, algae and cyanobacteria, and even more participants. Since they are the first things to colonize exposed rock and growing trees, it’s estimated according to Johnson R. Haas and O. William Purvis in Lichen biogeochemistry that they cover 6% the Earth’s land surface.

    20150310ArtLichenB
    20150310ArtThimbleBud

    The thimble berries are starting to put on their annual art show. It starts with delicate pink flowers, followed by blood red berries in early summer. It’s an art show worth following. In unfolds beautifully and in the end you get to eat the art show.

    20150310ArtThimbleBlossom

  • Protecting Her Eggs

    ButterCupOnEggs

    Buttercup lets out her inner dinosaur to protect her eggs. It’s too bad that hens don’t have hands. If they did, they could write novels, code apps, knit booties, all sorts of things while they wait for their eggs to hatch.

  • A Season for Colors

    Tulip20150308

    The first tulip is starting to open. This is a season for colors. Everyday there is something new in bloom. It makes waking up each morning an adventure.

    EggsInASweater

    A sweater makes a good makeshift egg basket. So do pockets in jackets if there are just a few. Jut don’t forget you put them in your pockets. The egg on the far right is Hazel’s. The egg on the lower left is Bendy’s. I gathered these at the end of the day, when I went to let our old rooster, Billy, into his evening roost. He likes to be let in the back way so the younger roosters won’t harass him. He’s so happy when he doesn’t have to sneak past Sven and King Richard. He chuckles with joy when we let him in. That’s the closest way I can describe it. Roosters have a distinctive happy call they make when they are overcome with joy. If they are really joyous, they will even do a little dance with their feet. Does happiness in chickens feel the same as happiness in humans? Why wouldn’t it? Happiness is such a fundamental emotion that it’s origin probably predates humans and chickens by hundreds of millions of years.

    Carrying the eggs into the house, I pass the cherries in bloom. Few things are as soft as cherry blossoms in the evening. The wonderful things about flowers is that they look so different at different times of the day.

    EveningCherries20150308A
    EveningCherries20150308B