a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • 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.

    SvendaAsChick

  • 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

    BillyOnToBedA

    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.

  • One Last Meal

    OneLastMeal

    A common practice when butchering chickens is to not let them eat any food for twelve hours to a full day before you butcher them. The reasoning is that you want their digestive system to be clear of food when you butcher them, so it’s easier to process them. But birds have a high metabolism rate and not being able to eat for so many hours is distressing.

    I find it gentler to let them eat uninterrupted, and spend a little extra care and time processing them. The big bulge on this unfortunate rooster is his last meal. When chickens eat, their meal first goes into their crop, a sack at the bottom of their neck. They can stuff a large amount of food in their crop. Then, at their leisure, they will digest their meal.

    NextToMother

    On a lighter note, I took another picture today of this young chick waiting quietly as its mother lays an egg. The chick is nearly the size of its mother. Even a bird with a small brain is capable of needing love and giving love.

    Also see You Never See This on a Regular Egg Farm.