a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • Forest Birds

    My chickens spend a lot of time in the forest. It’s where there ancestors came from. It’s where the mothers like to take their chicks. Hidden in the brush, they must feel safe from predators. They seem to find lots to eat by scratching through the forest floor.

    ForestChickens
    MotherAndChickInTheWoods

    Below are two month old siblings. Once their mother leaves them, chicks hang out with their siblings. These are bonds which will endure for a long time. The wire fence gives the impression that they are caged. The wire fence is the dog kennel which is open most of the time. The chickens are free to come and go through the kennel. They can also fly out of the kennel if it is closed.

    How a Mother Hen Protects Her Chicks : May 4
    Just Three Days Old and All This Fun : May 1
    Teaching Them to Feed : Apil 29


    RestingSiblings
    TwoMothersWithChicks140704

    The two mothers jointly raising the two chicks are getting along pretty well. The chicks have bonded with both mothers and go freely between the two.

    See also:
    Importance of Love
    Summer Musings
    More on the Interracial Lesbian Moms
    Interracial Lesbian Mothers
    Two Mother Hens

  • Picked Today

    20140703Eggs

    It’s Thursday, time to deliver eggs and produce picked this morning to Tweets Café. This week I have three cartons of Ruby Streaks, a carton of kale and chard, and some shallots, and of course eggs. In few weeks I’ll start making an extra delivery of fresh salad greens to Tweets on Saturday. Eventually, I plan on delivering fresh salad greens every day they are open and expanding my service to other restaurants which want to serve their customers produce picked that day.

    20140703BicycleDeliveryA
    20140703BicycleDeliveryB

    On the way home, I dropped by Bow Little Market, a country market held on Thursdays in Belfast, Washington. This is the fifth year for the market and it has grown a lot since it first began.

    BowLittleMarketA
    BowLittleMarketB

    Bow Little Market was started by Chuckanut Transition, “a group of rural, independent and capable people learning to live cooperatively with each other and our natural world.”

    BowLittleMarketC
    BowLittleMarketD

    Bow Little Market is held next to Belfast Feed Store, on North Green Road near the intersection of Old Highway 99 and Bow Hill Road. The nearest freeway exit is exit 236 on I-5 north of Burlington, WA.

    BowLittleMarketMap

  • Planting Beans

    PapaDeRolla

    World genebanks hold 40,000 varieties of beans. Every year I try different varieties. Two of the new ones I am trying today are Papa de Rolla, a bean from Portugal, and Zuni Shalako, a bean from Southwestern United States and Mexico. I purchased these beans at the Olympia Farmers Market in June.

    ZuniShalako

  • Harvesting Shallots

    It’s a good day when you can pull 9 pounds of shallots out of the ground from a 6 square foot plot. I’m getting 1½ pounds per square foot, so if I want to grow a ton of shallots, I’ll need 1,333 square feet. Round that up to 1,500 square feet or a 15 by 100 foot area.

    ShallotsOnTheGround
    ShallotsInTheGround
    ShallotsHarvesting
    ShallotsFreshOutOfTheGround
    ShallotsDrying

  • Three Young Roosters

    These three young roosters are as colorful as the flowers around them. Young roosters spend most of their time together. They remind me of teenage boys who hang out together, too timid to ask girls out for a date, too insecure to be on their own. Roosters don’t come into their own until they are nearly a year old. Until they do, they seek each other’s company.

    Roosters come in so many colors, I wonder if they look at each other and think, “I wish I had his feathers.”

    YoungRoosters

    The Stewartia is still blooming. Their flowers are refreshing on a soft summer evening.

    NatsuTsubaki