Meet our girls

After my exciting confrontation with a fully grown leaf-footed bug yesterday morning, this morning was surprisingly tranquil in the garden. I did see a couple of leaf-footed bug nymphs (must be late bloomers) that I dispatched without incident, and I caught some ants tending to some of their aphid livestock on my morning glories (bad light, no pic, sorry), which I removed delicately with the water hose at full pressure.

Shelob and two hobbits

I did catch a pretty nice picture of this little spider (from Earth) with some leftovers she's saving for later. To be completely honest, spiders kind of freak me out. I hate them in the house but grudgingly accept them in their natural habitat. I have no objection to this one who is doing its part to defend my plants against less useful bugs.

Full disclosure: at this point in the writing, I decided to grab a beer because we have about a thousand leftover from the party (Thanks, y'all!) and, more importantly, I hit a writer's block. So, read on at your own risk. The time you waste is purely your own. Without any real bug drama, the well, which is what I call my brain sometimes, has run dry.

While sipping my brunch beer and looking through the unpublished photological archives of The Nearly Constant Gardener, I've decided to use this crisis opportunity to formally introduce you, ladies and gentlereaders, to my flock of urban poultry. Travis and I have tended many a chicken, from chick to ornery laying hen, these past few years and this is our flock as it currently stands.

Juanita

Juanita posing dramatically

This sultry Latina is an Ameraucana (a cleverly named cross between a Chilean Araucana and various American breeds), which means she lays colored eggs. Ameraucanas eggs can range in color from pinkish white to olive green. Juanita lays eggs that are a very Martha Sterwartish shade of pale green, and she lays like clockwork everyday.

One of Juanita's green eggs in an egg holder that we own for some reason

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pearl

A Pearl in the rough

Pearl is the only remaining chicken from our very first set of chicks. She's an Austrolorp pushing five years old. She used to be at the very bottom of the pecking order when her peer chickens were of the same age, but these days she's completely in charge. Even I'm a little scared of her. She lays the sort of enormous brown eggs that hippies and soccer moms pay a small fortune for at farmer's markets and organic grocers (but we get for free, more or less).

Gloria

Gloria, don't look her in the eye

Gloria is a Barred Rock who lays reasonably well until the beginning of March when she goes broody. Broody means that she tries to hatch her eggs, and any other bird's eggs, so she stops eating, moving, and poopping for 3 months. This is a picture I took of her just this morning in a special brooder coop. We moved her away from the other chickens because broody hens get ornery and don't let other chickens lay. Broodiness can actually be useful for raising chicks, ducklings, and maybe more.

Patrick

Patrick the duck

Patrick, as you may have noticed, is a duck. A male Mallard to be precise. He was actually raised by another of our chickens, Henrietta, who like Gloria, was prone to broodiness every spring. We came across some fertilized duck eggs, put them underneath broody Henrietta, and about a month later had six ducklings. We wanted to keep two of the six that were females so we tried to sex them using our fancy Science Knowledge. Obviously, that didn't pan out as Patrick is definitely a male. He also thinks he is a chicken, or more specifically, a rooster as our chickens could attest. Patrick's sister Selma and his adopted mother Henrietta were both killed by the same opossum in a string of vicious nighttime raids that ended when I put up an electric fence around the coop. Incidentally, the opossum bit the electric fence, got stuck with his jaws clutching it until morning when we found him, and Travis violently bludgeoned him to death with a shovel. We were attached to Henrietta.