a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • Rikka

    Rikka

    According to the traditional Japanese calendar, May 5 is the start of summer this year. The traditional Japanese calendar, based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar, divides the year into 24 solar terms, which mark each 15 degree movement the earth makes around the sun. The term which just passed, April 20 through May 4 this year, was 穀雨 – Kokuu, which translates to “rains which help the grain grow”. It marks the time when the rains arrive to make the grain grow.

    The six terms of summer are:

    • 立夏 – rikka, the start of summer 5/5~5/20
    • 小満 – syoman, small fullness: the time when everything is growing well 5/21~6/5
    • 芒種 – bousyu, heads of grain: the time when the heads of grain are forming 6/6~6/20
    • 夏至 – geshi, summer solstice 6/21~7/6
    • 小暑 – syosyo, little heat: the time when it gets hot 7/7~7/22
    • 大暑 – taisyo, great heat: the hottest time of the year 7/23~8/6

    Not a great deal of warmth to mark the start of summer here. The rains which helped the grain grow won’t stop falling.

    LilacsPurple
    LilacsWhite

    The mother hens are as busy as ever.

    OffIntoTheWoods

    And there is always more planting to do. Looking at a bed of freshly planted soil, it’s hard to believe that in a short time, there will be nothing but vigorous green growth here.

    PlantingSeeds

  • Flowers, flowers, flowers

    Something new is blooming every day. It’s a great time of the year to be outdoors.

    BlueBells
    ComfryBlossoms
    HenInBrush
    ThimbleBerryFlowers

  • How a Mother Hen Protects Her Chicks

    One of the way a mother hen protects her chicks is by fluffing up and making herself look much larger. It’s almost comical watching these fluff-balls protecting their little ones.

    FluffedHen1
    FluffedHen2

  • Spring Garlic with Chicken – True Paleo Fare

    This is a simple recipe with just a few ingredients.

    • One whole five-month old rooster which has been crowing for no more than a month and butchered within the last four days
    • One bunch of green garlic freshly plucked out of the garden – to grow a bunch of garlic, leave whole bulbs of garlic in the ground the summer before. Each garlic bulb will shoot up a bunch of slender garlic, perfect for dishes like this.
    • Some sprigs of freshly picked oregano
    • Sake or white wine

    PaleoChicken-RawWhole
    PaleoChicken-Garlic

    Cut the rooster into drumsticks, thighs, and breasts. Save the wings and the rest of the carcass to make soup.

    PaleoChicken-RawBreast

    The breasts should be a nice rose color, the bones a shiny alabaster. The skin and meat should have a bright, translucent sheen. The fat should be a pleasing, lemon color. The thighs will be bright red.

    PaleoChicken-RawDrumsticks
    PaleoChicken-RawJoints
    PaleoChicken-RawThighs

    Arrange the pieces of rooster in a heavy pot. Top with the garlic and oregano. Add some sake or white wine so there is a half inch to inch in the bottom of the pot. Cover the pot and put on a very low flame. Let it gently simmer for two hours.

    PaleoChicken-InPot

    Out will come tender, juicy, tasty meat. Dish up as whole pieces or cut up and serve. Sprinkle with salt if you like.

    PaleoChicken-Cooked

  • Cream and Butter

    It’s been awhile, but I made some butter this afternoon. We had run out of butter, but I had a quart of fresh cream from Jackie’s Jersey Milk I had bought yesterday, so I decided to make butter. Making butter is so simple, I wonder why I don’t make it more often.
    CreamAndButter

    With butter so easy to make, why are there so few brands of butter in the stores? And there are no butters made from raw cream. Shouldn’t there be hundreds of varieties from tiny, one of a kind dairies? Wouldn’t the butter from a dairy up in the mountains taste different than the butter from a dairy near the sea?

    But when you look at the butters on the store shelves, they all come from dairies churning out the stuff by the ton. Any subtle differences in the milk from this pasture or that, or from this cow versus that cow, is obliterated, and everyone ends up eating the same butter.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. We don’t all have to eat the same butter. And if you make your own, you will be the only one with that special butter.

    Many decades ago when I was visiting a friend in Bavaria, her mother sent us out to buy some milk. They lived out in the country, and they purchased milk from a small dairy a short walk from their house. We walked ten minutes through the beautiful countryside, carrying a cute metal container. The milk we purchased was so fresh and delicious.

    However, buying milk directly from a farmer is very difficult here. Many years ago, my uncle and aunt ran a small dairy farm in Kansas. Every few days, a milk truck came to their farm to pick up there milk and trucked it all the way to Texas. They weren’t allowed to sell their milk directly to consumers. But, they had a way around that. Neighbors would come by, “steal some milk”, and leave some money behind.

    Jackie’s Jersey Milk

    How to Churn and Clarify Butter from Cream