Good Morning! in 2018

[Ontario Chick]

Back to hot again, there are 5 broodies, absolutely not to be discouraged, I have started to throw them out the dutch door once a day, just to cool them down, too silly for words.
Front lawn cooked to smithereens,

and the same gust of wind that took my patio umbrella, very inconveniently dropped a large poplar over my path to the creek, not that there is much creek left at this point.
Have a cool one!

[TomK]

Happy Snday to all...would be even better if i would rain but that's not going to happen anytime soon...ground is sooooo dry...hard to weed the garden but it needs to be done...last week's hot spell kept me out of much of the garden chores, focussed more on making sure the birds survived so the weeds took advantage and went on a growth spree...grrrrrrrr....well most are gone now so there...darn near had heat stroke getting it done...for the past week i have been on a mission to murder as many Colorado potato beetles as humanly possible...I will never get them all but I want true organics here so mechanical destruction is the only option, mechanical in this case being between thumb and forefinger...I got past the yuck factor real fast when I saw the amount of plant destruction a hatching of just one batch can do to a potato plant...so I think I am winning....anyway, the battle continues....

[TomK]

BTW, WLLADY...AKA Kathy...the Welsummer pullets are beautiful..doing well and will be outside this week...they have spacious quarters and a decent breeze coming thru the coop on these hot days...really nice looking birds...thank you so much

[labradors]

Tom, have you tried knocking the Japanese beetles into a bowl of soapy water? I have to do it that way because they like to congregate on my climbing rose and I have to use a stick to knock them in.

Linda

[WLLady]

the red potato beetle slugs (they turn into beetles that make MORE red potato beetle slugs in no time!) drown really nicely in soapy water.....i just leave a jar right in the potato patch so it's there when i need it. otherwise they'll stain your fingers.
we don't have ANY bugs. except deer flies and mosquitos. and something eating my brussel sprouts (and it's not the cabbage looper). i have seen zero honey bees this year. so next year we'll be getting a nuc i think. there's a few milkweed bugs....and some dragonflies. but i've seen no bees whatsoever. even those sand bees are down this year. sigh. i don't want to have to manually pollinate my squash plants-although with my luck the squash borer will arrive just in time to kill the plants.....um.

@TomK so glad they're doing well for you! certainly well travelled birds LOL. glad the trip wasn't too stressful...sitting beside my ultra scary lab the entire way LOL. i have seen the girls trying to groom the dog while he's laying in the grass, they're definitely terrified LOL

processed 32 boys yesterday. didn't feel like doing much for the rest of the day. now it's way more quiet in the morning. the girls seem in shock that they don't have to run and hide from them anymore. so last night i needed to help 3 little girls get into the "big girl" coop instead of the grow out coop. they caught on pretty fast-when "mom" puts you in the chicken door, you run straight out the hole in the screen in the front door! ha ha. okay....screen will be fixed tonight.....maybe, if i have any spline to do it with. they did go to bed in the correct coop. and seem part of the flock this morning. have to clean out that grow out coop and then move the kids from upstairs out in it.

i think we are making progress on our ant issue....looks like the house is sealed up enough with the new insulation and doors and windows and stuff that they are coming in OVER the sill plate of the patio door when the door is open and the screen closed. LOL. so a bit of ant spray along the frame and siding seems to be helping. no issues when the door is closed....yay! which means i managed to hopefully get them out of the subflooring. argh!
i had to resort to big guns spray though. organic is great for some things, but not for full blown eradication.

hope everyone has a wonderful week. hot down here again, but at least there's little humidity, so it's bearable!

[Happy]

@WLLady my chickens have realized that my lab is a mosquito and deerfly magnet. So when he lays down in the yard they casually stroll over to hang out and pick the bugs off him lol.

[Ontario Chick]

@WLLady my chickens have realized that my lab is a mosquito and deerfly magnet. So when he lays down in the yard they casually stroll over to hang out and pick the bugs off him lol.

Used to do that with our Great Dane and throw the dear flies to the gold fish, circle of life

Have few bumble bees, but no bees at all, very few dragon flies, but no mosquitos, so that at least makes sense, but many butterflies, some of them I haven't seen before.

[Killerbunny]

I just saw little prospect of rain for here for another 10 days!!!!!

[WLLady]

@WLLady my chickens have realized that my lab is a mosquito and deerfly magnet. So when he lays down in the yard they casually stroll over to hang out and pick the bugs off him lol.

alas....my chickens do NOT eat mosquitos. or flies (i think they OD'd on flies). June bugs however are delish (ew-the thought of those crawling around in a crop all night.....blech!)

[SusanH]

I just spent a nice few minutes watching two winged insects moving in to my Costco bee house! When my tractor, um, broke (ok I ran over a clothesline buried in the tall grass, and after many hours on my back with the tractor up on ramps trying to unwind it, I had to send it out) I let the lawn go to clover and daisies and it was gorgeous! (Now brown and crisp)I expected it to attract bees, but there weren't many. I am not sure what type of bees are filling the cells, but I am delighted that they find it useful. I think they aren't all the same species. Two cells are sealed at the end with some sort of beige substance. One that I watched today was sealed with green matter, and two have tufts of dry grass sticking out. The bees? I saw today were iridescent green.
No shortage of mosquitos here! Lots of interesting butterflies.