a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • Help Is On the Way

    HelpIsOnTheWayC

    I’m clearing out a bed of chard and onion to make way for spinach. The packet says 38 days to harvest. I love how seed packets are always so full of optimism. First Billy and then Lucky come into the hoop house to help me prep the ground. You can accomplish any farm task as long as you have enough chickens. They are soil experts with beaks and claws from hell. Need a vegetable or flower bed aerated? Chickens to the rescue. Need a bed of cover crop mowed down? Chickens at your service. Need a compost pile turned? Chickens know how to do that. Need a plot debugged? A flock of chickens will do it nicely, and leave the plot well fertilized to boot.

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    HelpIsOnTheWayA

  • Not a Cloud All Day

    SweetDaphne

    A full day with not a cloud all day. Even the jets passing overhead from Asia to Denver or Dallas, couldn’t mar the cobalt sky with a contrail. The sweet daphne is in full bloom. It is so fragrant it’s intoxicating. The plums aren’t as fragrant, though if you lie in the grass underneath a plum tree, the beauty may put you in a trance. Now there is a fairy tale. Once upon a time, there was a hidden garden with flowers and trees so beautiful, no one who entered was ever seen again …

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    Painted in Waterlogue
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    It’s time to get more lettuce started in one of the hoop houses. Hard to believe that in not too many more months, these dirt rows will supply many salads. But not if I forget to close the hoop house door. If I leave it open just a bit, the hens quickly make themselves at home. In their never ending quest for the fattest, longest worm on the planet, they can quickly destroy many a lettuce bed.

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  • Svenda Sandstone

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    B’dazzled blue, cedar chest, Egyptian blue, Harvard crimson, metallic sunburst – the names of colors is endless. Here’s one more: Svenda Sandstone, the color of Svenda’s eggs. She lays eggs that not only have a sandstone color, they even feel like sandstone when you rub them. One was laid February 24 and the other today, February 26.

    Each egg a hen lays is slightly different from the one before it, and different enough from the other hens, that it is often easy to tell whose egg it is. Svenda will never lay a white egg. She’ll never lay a dark egg. She only lays sandstone colored eggs.

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  • Things a Hen Like

    WhatAHenWantsA

    Hens like quiet, sheltered nests. They are modest and like to lay eggs without being exposed to prying eyes. This is 雲月 (Ungestu – Moon Cloud). I have several of these very refined, gray-black hens.

    I read about some farms which produce a million eggs a day, which means they have more than a million hens crammed in very noisy, crowded warehouses. Not one of those hens gets to lay an egg in a quiet nest. What they have are more than a million very frustrated, crazed hens. I would need 50,000 acres, a farm about nine miles by miles, or nearly twice the size of San Francisco, to house that many hens. Chickens need lots and lots of space.

    WhatAHenWantsB
    WhatAHenWantsC

    Hens also like to peck at daffodils. Not a single hen on those farms with more than a million hens ever gets to peck at a daffodil. They live their entire lives without ever seeing a single flower bloom.

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  • Out of the Garden Today – February 24, 2015

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    Arugula and Ruby Streaks overwintered in the hoop house and with all the recent sunshine, they are exploding. Which means plenty of fresh salads. Happiness is picking greens moments before you eat them. The best food doesn’t come from the store, it comes out of your own garden.

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