Category Archives: Pets and Animals

Free Plants = Hard Work

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A couple of weeks ago we were commenting about our neighbor’s yard and how it was such a shame for all of those plants to be so neglected. You see, she has a non-traditional yard with lots of plants and flowers instead of just grass, but unfortunately she has let the house go into foreclosure and no longer lives there.


The house in question with the ‘mow-it-down’ landscaper’s truck

Then Britton and I were working in the backyard and Britton let out a gasp as he walked through the gate to the front yard and saw someone MOWING down all the beautiful irises, poppies, mums, alliums, roses, lavender and so much more. So we dropped everything we were working on and ran over to the landscaper. “Please! Don’t mow these down, or if you are going to, just let us take some plants out first!”

So he said he would hold off on mowing the front side area while we collected the plants. We got as much as we could in one trip. He saw we were still trying to get more plants when he was ready to do that side, so he said he would just leave it for a while and come back in a few days. A few days later he still hadn’t returned which was good for us, but we noticed a sign on her house that said “City Violation: Noxious Weeds -Whole Yard”. We were just amazed. No wonder people think we are crazy having chickens if having roses and irises instead of grass constitutes “noxious weeds”.


Some of the plants we saved from being mowed down

So, anyway, this transplanting from one yard to the other became quite a project. We were thinking of doing something new with the front area anyhow. We mostly spend our time in the backyard with the chickens, greenhouse and vegetable and flower gardens, but we took the hint and decided this was the push we needed to start working on it. (How can you say no to free plants!?) Here you can see some of what it took, just to take out the old stuff! (Plus you know it’s summer when the ice cream truck drives by! 🙂  )

This is the before and after. We are still hoping to fill it in with more wild flowers and other plants so there is less dirt seen but we think it looks pretty good to start!


Front area before with one of the plants and Schnoodle

Front facing the other direction after a ton of work (with Schnoodle and Kitty too!)

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Comfrey and the Bee

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We have this plant called comfrey. I think it is quite pretty with little dangling purple flowers on it. Britton thinks it grows too fast and impedes the flow of water from the sprinkler, but I think it’s great! One thing that this plant also does that is unique is it brings bumble bees to our yard. Bumble bees are very different from honey bees. They are big, buzzing, fuzzy and are the classic yellow and black. I happened to be out in the yard and snapped a few pictures of it gathering supplies on the comfrey plant.


Working hard

Comfrey is actually a useful herb in herbal medicine as well as in fertilizing. The traditional name for it was knitbone as it contains an herbal ingredient allantoin. Allantoin is a cell proliferant that speeds up the natural replacement of body cells. Comfrey was once used to treat a wide variety of ailments ranging from bronchial problems, broken bones, sprains, arthritis, gastric and varicose ulcers, severe burns, acne and other skin conditions. Externally, it has many tremendous benefits as you can see in this video. However, taken internally it should be used in very limited quantities and under careful watch of an herbalist.

 

Used in the garden, the leaves of comfrey store all of the minerals that the plant accumulates from the soil and can then be composted back into the garden without losing nitrogen. Comfrey has all this and bees beside!

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Chickens Eat Mice!

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This is kind of disturbing and slightly disgusting. But this morning as I was grabbing a banana on my way to work, I looked out the back door and saw Kitty really interested in something in the grass. As I watched, I saw him pounce on something and come up with a mouse in his mouth. I wanted to get a picture of our little mouser, so I grabbed my camera and went outside. When he heard the door open he kind of freaked out and dropped the mouse and couldn’t find it. I could see it just sitting still in the grass.

As I approached it to see if it was still alive like I thought, it bounced up and tried to scurry away. I put the camera to “record” and just watch what happens….

I have seen them get little baby mice before, but never a full-sized one like this. It was like I was on the Discovery channel or something.  You can tell I was kind of grossed out watching it, but utterly fascinated that a chicken could do this! Kitty was kind of like, wow…I’m not going to get involved in that… If anyone tells you chickens are vegetarians, you can remind them of this video! Chickens are not ferocious to you or me, but watch out if you are a mouse!


Henrietta with her catch of the day

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The Time of Slugs and Siestas

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I love this time of year, when it gets more and more reliably warm. The plants are happy, the animals are happy, and we are happier too! We’ve been enjoying our daily salads straight from our greenhouse and garden. There is so much lettuce: salad bowl lettuce, red and green leaf romaine, spinach, bibb and more that we’ve even been giving some away. We also have been eating radishes and I ate my first greenhouse strawberry of the season today at lunch.

The other day Britton went out to gather the goods for a salad and we had a few uninvited guests to our salad lunch. Slugs! They were small, but nonetheless were enjoying our leafy greens. We picked through it and checked each piece and came up with about 4 slugs. Luckily we have slug-o-matics called chickens who devoured them in a snap.


Close up of a slug on Britton’s hand

Then, of course, after a good meal, everyone wants to take a nap. So it was siesta time. I wish I could take a siesta every day!


Chicken Siesta


Cat Nap

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