- Every chick deserves a mother: one man’s crazy dream for how chickens deserve to be raised.
Follow "A Man and His Hoe" via Email
Sections
- About My Chickens (547)
- Cooking-Roasting Tips (18)
- Happiness (127)
- How Things Grow (501)
- Purchasing Chickens (5)
- Raising Chicks (138)
- Recipes (19)
- Reflections (407)
-
Recent Posts
- Where Everyone Gathers March 29, 2020
- Enjoy Them Today March 21, 2020
- The Snow Geese Migration Is On March 18, 2020
- The World is Curvy March 7, 2020
- Little Known Connections – Japanese Curry and Vermont March 4, 2020
- Hello Again March 1, 2020
- Edison Chicken Parade 2020 February 24, 2020
- Apple Aged February 15, 2020
- Swan Heaven February 8, 2020
- Winter’s Last Day February 3, 2020
- Take a Shower for Six Months February 2, 2020
- How Does a Trumpeter Swan Wash Its Face? January 26, 2020
- Mystery Solved January 19, 2020
- One Last Wintery Dawn January 18, 2020
- Winter Interlude January 14, 2020
- Worries Away January 11, 2020
- A Mystery Rose January 3, 2020
- An Auspicious Start January 2, 2020
- December Blue and Green December 29, 2019
- Frosty December 28, 2019
- Too Wet for the Ducks December 22, 2019
- For Mid-December It May as Well Be a Sunny Day December 17, 2019
- OK, Boomer December 15, 2019
- Know Your Body – Know Your Feathers December 8, 2019
- Chaos Must Work December 1, 2019
- Not Ready to Grow Up November 26, 2019
- All Together Now November 16, 2019
- (no title) November 15, 2019
- All the Leaves are Gone November 5, 2019
- Indigo Fall October 29, 2019
- Snow Geese and the Last Dandelion October 23, 2019
- Autumn is Just as Colorful as Spring October 18, 2019
- First Frost October 9, 2019
- How Did I Get So Lucky? October 8, 2019
- Who Eats Apples? October 6, 2019
- October Sky October 1, 2019
- Still Alive September 27, 2019
- One of the Best! Or Not September 26, 2019
- What You Don’t Know May Kill You September 25, 2019
- Change Is Coming September 23, 2019
- Learning to Share September 21, 2019
- Barefoot Gardening September 15, 2019
- No Remorse September 9, 2019
- September or May? September 5, 2019
- Summer’s Waning Days August 29, 2019
- Life Without Rhubarb is No Life At All August 21, 2019
- All the Good There Is August 17, 2019
- Luxury of a Cool Summer August 10, 2019
- Home Sweet Home August 5, 2019
- Too Far to Go August 1, 2019
Recent Comments
Cindy Dowdell on Enjoy Them Today Ingrid Hinton on The Snow Geese Migration Is On amanandhishoe on Edison Chicken Parade 2020 Marcia Burns on Edison Chicken Parade 2020 Shirley Clift on How Does a Trumpeter Swan Wash… Archives
- March 2020 (6)
- February 2020 (5)
- January 2020 (7)
- December 2019 (7)
- November 2019 (4)
- October 2019 (7)
- September 2019 (8)
- August 2019 (6)
- July 2019 (6)
- June 2019 (7)
- May 2019 (5)
- April 2019 (9)
- March 2019 (8)
- February 2019 (13)
- January 2019 (15)
- December 2018 (10)
- November 2018 (9)
- October 2018 (13)
- September 2018 (8)
- August 2018 (9)
- July 2018 (8)
- June 2018 (8)
- May 2018 (8)
- April 2018 (10)
- March 2018 (9)
- February 2018 (8)
- January 2018 (9)
- December 2017 (10)
- November 2017 (10)
- October 2017 (17)
- September 2017 (12)
- August 2017 (11)
- July 2017 (8)
- June 2017 (11)
- May 2017 (10)
- April 2017 (12)
- March 2017 (11)
- February 2017 (11)
- January 2017 (15)
- December 2016 (20)
- November 2016 (15)
- October 2016 (14)
- September 2016 (17)
- August 2016 (20)
- July 2016 (20)
- June 2016 (23)
- May 2016 (19)
- April 2016 (19)
- March 2016 (24)
- February 2016 (22)
- January 2016 (24)
- December 2015 (19)
- November 2015 (19)
- October 2015 (24)
- September 2015 (22)
- August 2015 (26)
- July 2015 (26)
- June 2015 (23)
- May 2015 (30)
- April 2015 (35)
- March 2015 (36)
- February 2015 (31)
- January 2015 (35)
- December 2014 (31)
- November 2014 (34)
- October 2014 (37)
- September 2014 (35)
- August 2014 (52)
- July 2014 (54)
- June 2014 (50)
- May 2014 (67)
- April 2014 (55)
- March 2014 (34)
- February 2014 (23)
- January 2014 (33)
- December 2013 (20)
- November 2013 (3)
Monthly Archives: August 2015
You Are My Sunshine
You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,you make me happy, when skies are grey … Sunshine made me happy when I caught her checking out a nest. She didn’t know how funny she looked, standing apprehensively on one foot as … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens
Leave a comment
Back in the Land of the Wet
We are back in the land of the wet. Saturday’s storm blew away the sun with enough force to topple trees, knock down climbing beans, and floor rows of corn. It also whipped the electric lines from here to kingdom … Continue reading
Posted in Reflections
Leave a comment
Skunky at the End of August … Vogue in the Future?
Nearly five months ago, at the beginning of April, Skunky was an adorable chick who could easily fit in my palm. She’s a stunning hen now, maybe a month away from laying her first egg. She is so elegant, I … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens
3 Comments
If a Woodpecker and a Chicken …
If a woodpecker and a chicken fell in love, this is what their children would look like. The turken chick that Madge hatched is mostly black with a white face and white trim on its wings. When it walks around, … Continue reading
Late Summer
Cattails in bloom are a sign of late summer. The female flowers form the dark brown, spongy tails. The male flowers are on the spike above. In the spring when the tails turn to fluff, birds use the fluff to … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Love You, Love You Not
A sunny day is a good day to crack out of an egg. The sunflowers are blooming as brightly as the sun. Sunflower’s hens started hatching on Sunday. One of her new chicks is part Turken, a breed of chickens … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens
Leave a comment
Artemis
The artemis melons in the hoop house are developing. In just a few days, the size of the melons have grown noticeably. They get to be round, two pound melons. The description from Territorial Seed Company reads: A French Charentais … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Letting Go
The dancing poppy blossoms of late July are gone. What was a bed of delightful poppies is now a morgue of wilted poppy plants. It’s time to let them go. Gardening is a meditation in letting go. You want those … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Happy Greens, Happy Reds
Few vegetables let you know you’re alive like arugula. Some lettuces are so bland, you could fall asleep eating them. Not spicy arugula. Toss this in with your salad and your eyes will pop out with happiness when you bite … Continue reading
Posted in Happiness
Leave a comment
One Potato, Two Potato, Three Potato, Four
Tomorrow is market day at Bow Little Market. It’s time to sort the potatoes. This week I’m weighing every potato and sorting them by the ounce. So if you’re coming to Bow Little Market tomorrow, you can buy just the … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Usually chicks look nothing like their mothers. Their baby colors are usually different than their mother’s feathers. This little chick is the same shade of reddish brown as her mother. Will it grow up to look like it’s mother? Maybe, … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens
Leave a comment
All the News That’s Fit to Print
It’s a busy day in paradise. There is so much going on. Where to begin? Here is a condensed version of this morning’s news: A handful of blackberries were picked for breakfast A dog dug furiously when he smelled a … Continue reading
Posted in Reflections
5 Comments
Signs of Fall
It’s mid August, the coolness of Fall is in the morning air, the stacks of firewood have dried, dry leaves are gathering on the grass, baby melons are swelling, champagne grapes are turning purple. So much happens outdoors every day, … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Gentle Farming
It was Wednesday afternoon, a warm, sunny day. I don’t know who was needing a nap more, Hazel or her chicks. Snoozing next to or inside their mother’s feathers is what little chicks are meant to do. One day, some … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens, Raising Chicks
Leave a comment
Babies in the Rain
For the first time in their lives, baby kohlrabi are getting a soft shower of rain drops. What do they think of the rain? Does it taste better than the well water I use to water them? A few more … Continue reading
Things Never Die
A number of years ago, a dead cottonwood fell over in a windstorm. It’s now home to a thick bed of moss and brilliant yellow something. They have years and years of food in that cottonwood trunk. No worries for … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
One Thing Leads to Another
We’ve been here more than ten years now so I’ve looked at this circle of beech trees many times. This morning I saw a cedar had sprouted between two of the trees. Trying to take a photo of the cedar … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
2 Comments
To Catch a Dragonfly
The quality of these photos aren’t good, but they do give a sense of what happened. I found Hazel foraging with her chicks, except one was missing. It wasn’t too far away and peeping. I wondered why it wasn’t joining … Continue reading
Posted in About My Chickens
Leave a comment
Signs of Late Summer
It’s late summer when plump blackberries dangle in numbers beyond infinity. It’s late summer when you’ve eaten so many blackberries you can’t eat another one. It’s late summer when the anemones are dancing. Anemone comes from Greek and means “daughter … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
Love Rules Us All
It’s the season of color. There’s something celebrating every day. Flowers in full bloom, and Billy crossing the bridge to see who is on the other side. Will he get lucky or will she go? A rooster’s fate is to … Continue reading
Posted in How Things Grow
Leave a comment
