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Mother hens spend a lot of time with their chicks in thick brush. The brush provides cover from predators and their is a cornucopia of good bugs and worms to eat in the forest floor. Chickens evolved from jungle fowl, and they need to spend a good portion of their day hunting in thick brush and forest.
Month: May 2014
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In Thick Brush
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Berries You Can’t Buy
The peaceful walk down the driveway early this morning belies the reason I was walking through the woods. The dogs had caught an opossum in the wee hours of the morning. It wasn’t dead. It was lying on the asphalt looking very dead. A number of years ago, when the dogs caught one, I went outside to bury it. The dogs had lost interest in the carcass and were off by the pond. I went to get a shovel to bury it, and when I turned to go back to the opossum, it was wandering off into the woods.This morning, I put the opossum in a box and took it deep into the woods and let it go. They are very resilient creatures, able to endure being dragged around by dogs. This is life in nature. Everything is eating everything else. No matter what you are, you are on somebody’s menu. While cutting tall grass this morning, the mosquitos reminded me I was on their breakfast menu.
Speaking of menus, the purple salmon berry blossoms of April have turned into berries. Another month or so, and they will be delicious tart snacks to enjoy on a sunny afternoon while toiling outside.
The thimble berries are in full bloom. Of all the berries here, they are my favorite. They are too delicate to appear in grocery stores. When they ripen, they are good for just a day or two. Many of the best foods never make it to store shelves. You need to grow them yourself, which is why cities need to be laced with community gardens, so that even people living in cities can enjoy delicate treats like thimble berries.
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Cloud of Dust or The Sex Was Good
I went outside to take pictures of the golden chain tree, Laburnum, and spotted Billy and Imelda, our two old love birds. I dropped to the lawn to take pictures of them, when Kuma-Hime 熊姫 shook, throwing up a cloud of dust or dirt to bathe in.
Chickens are dusty creatures. They love taking dust and dirt baths. Hens make sure to teach their chicks how to take dirt baths. So it’s not surprising that chickens smell like dust. Since chickens enjoy dust baths so much, I wonder how chickens cope when living in environments where there is no dust.
When do chickens shake? After a good dust bath. The hens also give a good shake after sex. Once the rooster hops off them, they’ll stand and give a good shake, as if they’ve had a good thrill.
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Baby Greens
For many people, the first time they encounter a tomato or a bunch of salad greens is in the grocery aisle in their supermarket. Or, if they are getting their food prepackaged, or in a can, or in a jar, or in a restaurant, or in the frozen food section of their supermarket, they don’t even see that.
But baby vegetables, popping out of the earth and spreading their leaves, have a charm all of their own. They can be as cute as baby chicks. Don’t have a garden or place to grow things? Check out How Things Grow at a man and his hoe® from time to time to see how your food grows. Do you want to see how a particular vegetable grows? Let me know.
Baby Arugula
Baby Swiss Chard
Baby Ruby Streaks Mustard
Baby Squash
Baby Tomato
Important to all growing vegetables, is a healthy environment. This includes providing habitat for a rich variety of insects. All of the vegetable beds here are not far from borders of flowering plants which provide food and shelter for predatory insects, spiders, and even snakes. See Bees, The Beauty of Produce, How Apple Pie Starts, How Things Grow, and The Soil Will Save Us.
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Iris on the Verge
The iris by the pond are on the verge of unfolding. The thick vegetation along the banks of the pond is a perfect home for garden snakes, a playground for the dogs, and a foraging garden for the chickens.
