a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

  • You Can Go Home

    Every so often I need to take a break and go back to where I grew up. It is the height of cherry blossom season in Japan, and the castle grounds of Kanazawa are swathed in clouds of cherry blossoms.

    The Japan of my youth is no longer there. Like ever place else, it has moved on. A striking difference, even from seven years ago, are the number of foreign tourists. Even in Kanazawa, the crowds viewing the cherry blossoms are from everywhere; China, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Italy, Spain, Germany, England, and on and on, even Bow.

    Among the crowds visiting Kenroku-en, an expansive Japanese park next to the castle grounds, were young people decked all out, dressed as comic characters. It makes you wonder if this is the future of fashion. Will our mundane everyday wear change to such delightful fashion? I’m trying to picture myself digging potatoes dressed out like this.


    Walking the quiet streets of Kanazawa’s old residential streets, is a calming, almost meditative experience.


    It also comes with its amusing moments. What the owners meant to say is that their apartment is by the river side, but it would be worth renting a room here to write home that you now live in the “Liver Side” apartments.

  • What the Spring Sun Brings


    The spring sun shines a light on garden art, a shallot carved into an exquisite piece. Nature has a way of turning anything into a museum piece if you leave it alone long enough.


    The spring sun brings a bumble bee to life. Fresh out of the cold ground, it rests on the back porch, soaking in the sun, before she flies off to start her colony. Hopefully, she found a nest site on this sunny day and is snug tonight in her new home, dreaming of all the children she will have.


    The spring sun brings a cat on my chest when I stretch out to enjoy the warm, sunny day. The spring sun, source of life and happiness.

  • Winter is But a Memory


    Winter is but a memory now with tulips pushing their flower buds high, cherries in bloom, indian plums dangling their slender white flowers, plums spreading their pink petals wide for the bees, bleeding hearts carpeting the forest floor with green lace, and ferns waking up, their heads bending slowly upwards.

    The bleeding hearts which cover much of the forest floor here are the pink flowered Lamprocapnos spectabilis, a flower native to Siberia, northern China, Korea, and Japan. It is the only species in the genus Lamprocapnos. It is so well spread here that you’d think it had always been here.

    The Indian Plum, Oemleria cerasiformis is a native plant here, growing from Santa Barbara in California, up the Pacific coast of America into British Columbia. It too is a sole species in its genus, Oemleria. Fifty-seven genera of plants have 500 or more species, with Astragalus (milk-vetches) having 3,270 species.







  • It’s Not Only Flowers That Bloom


    The cherry blossoms are opening, and as they open they sing for the bumblebees to come. I saw my first bumblebee of the season today. By the weekend the cherry blossoms should be buzzing with bumblebees.


    The cherry tree is not the only thing in bloom, Russel, the rooster is always in bloom. His comb with three ridges is a blazing red peony. I wonder if any of the chicks he sires will have peony combs. Maybe I’ll have a flock of peony headed chickens.

  • Just One Warm Day


    Just one warm day is all the cherry blossoms are asking to spread their petals. It is spring. The sun has moved into the northern hemisphere. Is one warm day too much to ask for? But maybe we have it all wrong with temperature charts over days and weeks to predict when the cherries will bloom. Maybe what we need is to put microphones among the cherry blossom buds and listen for the buzz of the bumblebees. Could it be that cherry blossoms don’t open until they hear at least three bumblebees buzzing about? After all, what’s the point of spreading your petals if the bumblebees aren’t there to tickle them?



    It’s warm enough for the rhubarb, forsythia, and daffodils. Maybe the bumblebees wait to dig themselves out of their burrows until there is a sniff of daffodil in the air. Maybe the micro-tremors rhubarb stalks spread through the ground as they push their way out trigger the daffodils to bloom, the scent wafting off the daffodil blossoms trigger the bumblebees to stir, the bumblebees buzzing through the cherry blossom buds trigger them to open, the cherry blossoms trigger all sorts of happiness. Just saying. The world is more Alice in Wonderland than we imagine. We’re just not paying attention.




    In the cool woods, the first trillium of the season is about to unfurl. We spotted it while showing a longtime dear friend through the woods this morning. Most of the trilliums were just points of green sticking out of the forest floor. Not this one. This morning, the bud was still tightly curled. This afternoon it has already started to unfurl.