a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • The Delicious Warmth of Eggs

    WarmEggs

    What no one prepared me for was how warm fresh eggs are. The first time I picked up a just laid egg, what charmed me most was how warm it was. The internal temperature of a hen is between 105º and 113ºF (41º to 45ºC). Compared to a human’s body temperature, it’s like a steam bath. Eggs come out steaming. You can see the moistness steam off them before the hen sits back down, and in seconds, they are dry to the touch. Hens sit while they wait for their eggs to roll out of them. But just before they lay them, they stand up, close their eyes, take some deep breaths, and push the eggs out of their cloaca. Is it painful? I don’t know. There is some visible stress, but it is nothing like twelve hours or more of hard labor. The warm egg falls into the nest and dries by the time the hen sits down.

    When I go collect eggs, I’ll frequently find a nest with four or five fresh eggs, with the last hen having left the nest just moments ago. Having been kept warm with hen after hen sitting on the same nest, when I reach for the eggs, the whole nest is toasty, with the last egg the warmest of all.

    This is just between you and me, but one of the most delicious things in the whole world is a super fresh, still warm, raw egg. The warm, buttery yolk of such an egg has so much flavor. They are good alone, or one top of hot rice with a few drops of soy sauce.

  • Common Things Can Be Amazing

    IsabellaTigerMoth

    In late fall, the Isabella Tiger Moth (Pyrrharctia isabella) caterpillars, called Woolly Bears, are crawling over everything. There are thousands of them just here. Yesterday, I noticed one crawling about already. I never knew how amazing these caterpillars were until today.

    These are northern climate moths. When their caterpillars emerge in the fall, they freeze solid in the winter. In the spring they thaw out and pupate. However, up in the arctic, where summers are so short, they can’t eat enough in one short season to develop to the state of turning into a moth. So they freeze the next winter, eat some more the next summer, and the cycle continues over many years. They’ve been known to live through 14 winters, until finally, they have eaten and grown enough over the short summers to turn into moths.

    Imagine freezing solid and thawing out every winter and spring for 14 years. I know of parents who would love to have children they could freeze over and over again.

    Close to home, the name of the nearby town of Sedro-Woolley is believed to have come from the Woolley Bear. The town formed in 1898 when the two neighboring towns of Sedro and Woolley Bug merged. Legend has it that the old town of Woolley Bug was named so because of all the Woolley Bears that were crawling around there. The town of Sedro got it’s name from the Spanish word for cedar, “cedro”. The man who named Sedro, Mortimer Cook, changed the c in cedro to s to make the name unique.

  • Beauty and Her Egg

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    After a short winter, Svenda is back to laying eggs. She is a hen with class. She’s the kind of hen you’d expect to find shopping at Dior. Just like the runway models, she knows how to stare without cracking a smile. Try doing it. It’s a talent you either have or you don’t.

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    She lays a stunning egg too. There aren’t too many eggs in this world that get their mother’s name put on them.

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    It’s always fun going back and looking at baby pictures. Below is a shot of Svenda with her mother and siblings when she was about a week old. I’m not positive which one she is, but I believe she is one of the two up front, the two just in front of their mother. She’s in her prime and will be two this September.

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  • Solar Power Is Coming to A Man and His Hoe®

    SolarInstallation

    The crew from Banner Power Solutions began work yesterday on installing a solar power system on the garage. By next month we should be generating electricity and reducing our carbon footprint. They will be using solar panels made by Itek Energy, a company just twenty-two miles up the road in Bellingham, Washington. Their factory is close to Scratch and Peck, another great local company.

    Even the inverters used in the system will be from another nearby company, Blue Frog Solar in the pictoresque Viking city of Poulsbo. Instead of having a single inverter for the entire system, Blue Frog Solar inverters are small inverters with each solar panel getting it’s own inverter. This maximizes the power produced by the entire system. When a single inverter is used, the solar panel producing the least amount of power, determines the productivity of the entire solar array. With each solar panel getting it’s own inverter, electricity production is maximized, and it’s easy to determine which panel(s) may be having a problem.

    It’s been a longtime dream to do this, and now it’s finally happening. On to realizing more dreams. May you never run out of dreams.

  • Everyone Deserves a Little Love

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    Everyone deserves a little love, even Billy, our old rooster. He’s reluctant to go to bed through the main entrance of the chicken house because the younger roosters bully him. So my kind husband let’s him sneak into the coop through the rabbit house.

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    Late in the afternoon, Billy hangs out near the entrance of the rabbit house. When my husband opens the door for him, he comes running. Through the rabbit house he goes, and into the old coop, without having to face the younger, stronger roosters.

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    Life is so much easier when you have a kind husband, even for your roosters. If you’re looking for a husband, make sure you get a kind one with a big heart.