a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • Disaster Averted

    hens on nest

    The longest days of the year are here. It’s still light at 10 p.m. when I go out to put things away before bedtime. The summer solstice always comes too soon. Every day there are things to make me smile and laugh.

    purple flower
    snowbells
    snow preening

    These days, I don’t get to see Snow but once every few days. Today has been three days since I’ve spotted her. Most of the time she’s on her nest, but where is it? I’ve looked all around the pond for it for several weeks.

    I knew from the way she hissed and spread her tail feathers when I got too close to her that her nest was nearby.

    snow preening
    snow on way to nest

    I got curious when I saw her head out across the grass.

    snow in nest

    And when I saw her sneak into the burn pile, I got my answer. She has her nest under the pile of brush we’ve been building. Two days ago I nearly set it ablaze. It was a good day to burn the brush. If I hadn’t seen her sneak into it this evening, we may have lit the pile in a few days. I’m so relieved I found out where her nest was before it was too late. Disaster averted indeed.

    yellow flowers

  • Cool, Wet June

    forming apple

    So far it’s been a cool, wet June. But that’s not unusual around here. Some call it Junuary. The forecast is for rain and showers for the next seven days. The bees don’t mind the mild temperatures. They swarm the cat mint and California lilac. Our cat goes bonkers if I weed around the cat mint. When I come inside, he rolls all over me in ecstasy.

    I grew up with rainy Junes. Japan has a rainy season, the Plum Rains, 梅-plum 雨-rain, from early June into July. Though instead of being cool, gentle rains, they are hot and muggy, at times torrential rains, Rain pouring so loud, you couldn’t hear yourself think. The frogs love those rains. I remember being kept awake all night by the hot, muggy temperatures and tree frogs quacking up a storm all night long.

    bees on cat mint flowers
    bees on California lilac
    Japanese iris

    Each year the landscape changes. The sequoia we planted fifteen years ago is now a stately tree. It would be nice to see it five hundred, a thousand years from now, the tallest and thickest tree for miles around. Hopefully, no one will cut it down. I could put a plaque on it, “Cursed be the one who fells this tree.” That should work.

    growing poppy
    snowbell flower buds

  • The End of May


    The roosters and hens enjoy this spot in the woods. There is a fallen log for them to stand on and take in the surroundings.


    The yellow iris in the stream are in bloom. The bees love them. It must be nice to have flowers be your source of food. May is oscillating between cool and warm, rainy and sunny. For the bees it is dashing from one flower to the next, all day long.



  • Newer, Bigger, Better

    new duck pond

    Pond upgrade. It was time to upgrade the tank I had for the garden ducks. The 4.5 foot water tank I had for them was too small. I realized this after moving some of the ducks to our pond. Ducks love swimming, paddling, bobbing about on water.

    Hauling back an eight foot tank on the truck was harrowing. I strapped it down securely. Still, I was terrified a gust of wind would send it flying and hitting vehicles behind me. I pictured myself spending years in prison for reckless endangerment. Possibly even manslaughter for the deaths the flying tank caused when it smashed into a windshield behind me. But I made it home in one piece.

    It took half a day to empty the old tank, roll it out, dig a hole for the new tank, get it in place, add the ramps up to it, and fill it up.

    ducks in new pond

    But all the effort was worth it. You wouldn’t think going from 4.5 feet across to 8 feet across would make a difference, but area wise, the tank is three times the space as the old one.

    Immediately, I noticed that the ducks swim differently in the larger tank. They are far more relaxed. They love the ramps and spend a lot of time on them preening their feathers after a good swim. The pond upgrade turned out better than I imagined.

    columbine
    bug bites

    I’m sure whatever bug made these carvings in a rhododendron leave had no intention of creating a piece of art. But it did. It looks like a pair of dancing feet cut out of the side of leaf, or some new script. Given enough caterpillars and leaves, I suppose somehow, somewhere, caterpillars have carved out a lovely poem on the leaves of some tree.

    rhododendron flower buds
    rhododendron flowers

  • Summer in May


    Every year an ice shelf forms on one bank of the pond, an ice shelf of cherry blossoms. Wind blows the cherry blossom petals onto the pond and pushes them against one bank. It looks like an ice shelf to me.


    This last weekend we had a taste of summer in May. The temperature soared into the upper 70s here. Two days of mid July lost their way and showed up early, a reminder that more days like these are not far away.





    The white lilacs are perfuming the backyard. The slow growing madrona tree is putting out new leaves. The pace of growth among trees is so varied. Some aren’t content without growing many feet in a year. Others, like the madrona, are happy with adding just an inch or two.


    What would people be like if we never stopped growing? Nursing homes would be enormous with thirty foot ceilings, twenty foot long beds. Imagine five and six feet tall people herding twenty foot tall giants with dementia into a dining room. The toilets would be so large you’d need a stepladder to clean them.