AngelsGarden's Blog
AngelsGarden's posts about: chickens
Feb 24, 2008 | 1:22 PM PST
Tag: chickens
Yesterday a friend of ours brought us 3 more chickens. Very sweet of him. He has too many chickens. All of the ones he brought to us are white, but they all look different. They are all pretty young too, maybe 16 to 18 weeks old.
Let me tell you what happened, he brought them to us in a very large dog type kennel. We discussed that it would be better to put them in with the older chickens late in the evening when it was dark. So, I proceed with getting them some comforts, first food and water, then some hay to stand or lay on. Well, putting the food and water in that big door worked out fine. But when it came to the hay, well....lets just put it this way, one of the chickens freaked out. She shot out of the kennel like a bullet! I didn't even have time to TRY and grab her! I am just glad that the door was aimed in the general direction of the main chicken yard. So I went back there and opened the door to the chicken yard, then my husband came and shoooed the escapee out from under the hen house while I stood guard in case she decided to go the wrong way. Crazy!!!! While there was a little bit of jostling and fighting when she went in, it wasn't too bad and sometime in the afternoon she managed to get up in the nesting area and lay an egg. I'm surprised the older girls didn't kick her out of the nest. We put the other two in the hen house later at night. So far all of the white ones are hanging out together and trying to leave the old biddys alone. I can't wait to see how they fill out as they get older. The escapee one is still pretty rough looking. Must be from the trip, her feathers are a little dirty. Now my husband is talking about expanding their yard area so they have even more area to roam. Here are pics of all three.
The one with the brown looks like she will have a small comb.
This is Bullet, the former escapee.
Jun 25, 2007 | 7:34 AM PST
Tags: Atlantic Giant Pumpkin , Leaf-footed Bugs , Squash Vine Borers , Watermelon , Squash Vine Borer Larvae , Chickens , zucchini
This poor thing. It was just not destined for greatness this time around. The pumpkin hadn't grown in quite awhile so we decided to clean it out of the circular bed. Besides the watermelon was begging for more room.
When I started pulling it out I was surprised at how brittle it was. One of the first pieces I pulled up broke open right where there was this large (I'm assuming) Squash bug larvae. Gross!!!
I'm not sure how much damage overall the Leaf-footed bugs are responsible for, versus the Squash Vine Borers.
I had seen one of these in one of the zucchini plants that I had pulled up for the same reason, but it had been smaller.
When I looked at the pumpkin the stem, all of the way up to the pumpkin was full of holes along the inside of the stem and there was a big mushy spot were it had been sitting on the ground. It also had a wound that was an orangeish color.
That wound had me wondering if there was a bug in there too, because of the shape and color. So, I dug around in there with the scissors. Lo and behold...another gross larvae!
Very disgusting! I will be doing research and deciding how I will try to get a Giant Pumpkin without this happening again. I have not given up!!! This has all been very interesting to me. And now the watermelon has room to breath.
So, the chickens were pretty happy sat. night, they had a late evening snack of giant pumpkin with squash bug larvae on top.
Jun 4, 2007 | 9:20 AM PST
Tags: strawberry foxglove , chickens , pink dogwood tree
STRAWBERRY FOXGLOVE for $3.94 each
Yesterday my family and I went to W-M to pick up a few bags of top soil and some potting soil for starting seedlings for later in the summer. They had all kinds of plants on clearance, some looked great, some didn't. My husband spotted the foxglove first. He didn't know that I love foxglove and have been wanting some for a long time. I have actually tried to start some from seed a couple times with no luck. All of the foxglove plants looked great! They were in pretty good size pots too. We grabbed 3 of them and were off, the clouds were rolling in and the lightening was getting scary. None of them had flower stalks or even the remainers of any, so I don't know if they have bloomed yet. I looked this one up on a few places and most of them said that it truly is a perrenial....I will just have to wait and see about that. I am just so excited though and my husband was feeling better enough to work in the front flower bed last night for a couple of hours. It was great to share that with him.
My younger group of chickens have started to lay some eggs now. It won't be long and I will have more than we can use. Unless of course I am baking cookies, or cake, or bread, or cinnamon rolls, or pie....sorry my sweet tooth got away from me for a minute there.
The gladioulus are opening, they are beautiful. Even the orange and yellow ones. We will have to move the ones from around the pink dogwood tree though. They are just too tall. I will add more of the lilys instead.
