Repairs Are Endless

The Circle of Life: with life comes death,with age comes growth, with usage comes wear. Repairs are just a natural part of life.  Having been potted and re-potted two or three times since its capture from the cow pasture back in October 2017, the olive tree has been officially placed in its final pot.  Not trusting the salt laden ground to adequate growth in minerals and nutrients, the olive tree was placed in a scrap sonotube pot.  Having been hanging out in storage since the Work Box build back at the February of 2018, the Planner decided it was good usage of a natural material.

Next on the agenda was a modification to the chicken coop nesting box.  Since having been released to stay and play with the senior flock, the Pity Pets have taken to sleeping in the nesting box.  Not healthy for long term living conditions and happy coop life, a nesting box door was attached. 

Taking my initial design, the Planner came along and made it better by adjusting the length and adding a middle strap so that the "door" can be easily stored out of the way during the day and is guaranteed not to fall out when the hens have their nesting box parties.  Worse, when the rooster crashes the party and a fight breaks out.

Next was securing the chicken run door.  Not made of the best quality and not designed for outside usage, I would say this door has held up better than expected.  I mean it survived being zip tied during Hurricane Harvey and came out on the other side without damage.  A few bracings later and the door was good to go.

Door open, door closed, senior hens cannot be bothered with repairs underway when there are eggs to lay. Stand aside humans.

Having spent all day Saturday working, the Kid and I were sitting on the deck watching the hummerbirds (that is hummingbirds for all you non Rockportians) when nature stuck.  Spring winds have a history of being gutsy, but NOT this gusty.  The winds blew over the 10' tall Esperanza. One minute it is there, the next minute its a gonner.

Blew it, root and all, right out of the ground. Damm, sam!  Another thing to repair.

After a few tears and several attempts to replant, it was pulled. 

A quick trip down to the local mom and pop plant store informed me of my planting fallacy.  Esperanzas are drought resistant (which is on the many reasons why they are popular by Plan473) and do not like to have wet feet.  YIKES!  Being planted as a barrier to the outside shower, the poor plant suffered root rot.  The five gallon replacement brought back, already in bloom, was planted further out from the shower to allow for better drainage.  Good thing about our soil is that it drains fast.  Bad thing about our soil is that it drains fast.  Several more were purchased later in the week from the local big box store but were only pint sized varieties and were planted in various locations around for future growth and bloomage to offset the lack of shade from Harvey damage to the oak trees.

Another repair made to offset Harvey damage was to add a sun shade to the chicken run.  Trees that protected the chickens in years past were blown over or stripped of foliage.  Those stripped of foliage that survived still have not fully recovered and offer little protection from the intense summer sun.  Recommended by another Harvey shade sufferer, this simple 8x10 back yard sunscreen worked perfectly.

Light enough to hang from the coop without damage to the wire yet strong enough to withstand the gusty winds without damage.  Not needing to be told what to do, the chickens immediately flocked to the shade.  Another simple fix to a much needed repair.

Last but not least on a weekend full of repairs, the Planner tossed his well worn, age made comfortable, irreparable boots.  Leather is treated regularly for durability, laces are replaced when worn thru and broken, soles are glued and stapled until one day, the boot dies.  Never wanting new shoes, the inevitable was done.  Shoe laces were salvaged and shoes were tossed.  On a side note, I will have you know, this pair of boots sat on this chair for over a week and never once did one or both go missing.  NOT ONCE.  My boots sat outside one night and poof, Why the Boots! 

Hummingbird On Film

Plan473 consists of an acre and half of native grasses and flowers, half dozen potted plants picked especially with hummingbirds and butterflies in mind, and two sugar water feeders always filled fresh and clear from April to October.  After almost four years of filming and photo, a hummingbird has been caught on film. Years of planning, planting, and pruning have finally paid off. 

It was a very exciting moment!  

Pity Pets Update

Hearing a great commotion in the coop late one evening, the culprit was not four footed and furry nor sneaky and slithery,  It was two footed and feathered.  Just two days into her new surroundings, a rebel has developed.  Just two days and this little brown leghorn was already causing trouble. by wanting to roost in the coop.  Much to her dismay, the senior coop residents did not want her.  After much squabble and bickering and roost resettling, the tiniest of the new additions took solace on the coop door window.  What a pitiful little thing she is.  She is half the size of the next largest hen.  While not picked on by other hens, she is already an outlier.

During the day the senior flock are given the boot and the coop run door is closed allowing the little peepers free time to explore the permanent water and pellet feeder.  Of course, this is not always done without some resistance by the senior flock.  Most don't care but Nose Nellie is not having this separation.  Not aggressive by any means, although if looks could kill in this picture...., she is however super nosy.  Every time the roosting shavings are cleaned she comes a running with her little chicken butt swinging as fast her legs will carry her.  She has to be right there under your feet and rake while cleaning the shavings.  She scratches and pecks at the old shavings and new shavings looking for any edible item. When the coop door is opened to collect eggs, she hears the door squeak and there she is waiting for any bug to fall.  Most of the time she is a lucky duck as the wood roaches love the space between the coop door and the coop.  When the door is opened, the roaches fall off its perch to ground below and immediately beaked by Nosy Nellie.  Of course on the day of this picture she is nosy for all the right reasons.  She sees food.

Two weeks and having already grown in size, the Pity Pets are looking much better and are out growing their temporary residence.  Looks, however, can be deceiving.  Having had ample time to eat both starter feed and pellet feed, I thought it would be fun to introduce them to sweet treats.  Cutting a sweet red apple into quarters, one quarter was thrown into the coop for the new flock to taste and the rest to the gullets outside the coop. Instead of attacking the apple as the rest were doing, the Pity Pets looked at the apple slice with distrust. For hours that quarter of an apple just sat there, unpecked. How pitiful.

The apple may have been untrustworthy to the residents inside the coop but to the residents locked outside, this apple sitting there in all its red beauty was just too much.  First it was Nosy Nellie.  Later in the afternoon it was the doggo. Red apples are some of her favorite sweet treats.  Pity she did not get a quarter. Guess she figured if she stared long and hard enough at the apple slice, her mind powers would bring it to her.  It didn't by the way.

Pity Pets

Genetics control a persons characteristics, hair, height, eye, etc. Simple biology everyone remembers from Bio I and Bio II. What genetics does not control is what I refer to as generational characteristics.  There is current field of study called epigenetics, "a term used to describe inheritance by mechanisms other than through the DNA sequence of a gene" researching traits passed from parent to child that are not genetic.  In trying to better understand this research I stumbled upon this overly detailed, highly intelligent post written by the Britain Society for Cell Biology. Being I took Bio I and II over 20 years ago and this was way more than what was covered or remember from those classes, after attempting to process the information within this article, I came away understanding less than before I started. What I was trying to determine was if a trait tactic employed by a parent passes to the child unknowingly only to be used by the child years later as an adult unwillingly.

For example: Friday of Easter weekend while enjoying out favorite breakfast, the Kid was complaining about the upcoming five hour ride he had to endure. Understanding the Kid is just being a Kid and that while the drive really is five long hours, the ride is relatively easy.  He has his own seat, a pile of books to read, a phone to play on (if he doesn't run his tween mouth), and the final destination is somewhere he wants to go: Great Grandmas. His complaints mostly unregistered on my irritation level, I was sitting there enjoying the moment when one my mothers most annoying tactics appeared. The tiny fiddle, playing his tiny sad song.  BAM!  Out of no where too.  Having not lived at home since I was 20, this tiny fiddle and all of its irritation has not been seen nor heard nor endured in more than 20 years.  Yet there it was.  A tactic so easily used on my fingers, one would think I used it daily. 

But I don't. This irritating act caught me so off guard I started laughing.  The Planner who has been with me longer than without me found it funny too.  For him it was novelty.  For me it was, it was, it was... Words cannot describe.  After the laughs died I had to explain the tiny fiddle and its sad song, where it came from, and how it works.  As a child I would tell myself I would NEVER as an adult use the tiny fiddle.  It was a pity motion.  A poor woe is you motion.  Every time I saw that tiny fiddle, I repeated this mantra.  It must have worked because I can honestly say I have NOT ONCE since leaving home have ever thought of it.  So where did it come from? Epigenetics?  Don't know.  What I do know, is that it is leaving.

Going to Great Grandmas is a treat.  She is a tiny little German who is and always has been frail thin, unlike my large stock German heritage.  At 84, she had lived more life than most.  Born and raised in Texas Hill Country, she spent many years starving as this is a dry brutal land unsuitable to make a living from, yet managed to raise seven kids and is blessed with hordes of grandchildren and great grandchildren who come to visit regularly.  In her spare time when she is not working at the local restaurant or is in town at one of her numerous daily activities, she is managing the house and all of its responsibilities, cutting the grass, feeding her hundreds of hummingbirds, crocheting on one of her various projects for friends, or tending to her fabulous garden.

And while those are just a few of the fabulous things she does, it is her garden that amazes me the most.  I cannot grow a pot plant in a pot and this woman grows Southern Living worthy plants in dry, parched, unforgiving dirt.  Seriously, just look at the ground.  Nothing should grow there, yet it does.  As if it the flowers were genetically modified for that dirt.

For all the beauty found in her garden, it was this little gem stealing the show.  Unlike the tropical milkweed in a bucket at Plan473, Great Grandma has real native Texas Milkweed with monarch caterpillars and ladybugs to boot too.  There were dozens of these fabulous little plants with dozens of little caterpillars happily chomping away.   It was a pity knowing the plant would never transfer to the coastal bend, I left hoping my tropical milkweed would spread and grow and then next year I too would have dozens of milkweeds with dozens of caterpillars who grow into dozens of butterflies.

Growing into butterflies has yet to happen as the only caterpillar that has been seen morphing into the next stage of life was eaten while gone.  Before leaving the Kid and I watched in fascination as the caterpillar was preparing itself for the next stage.  Preparing for the chrysalis stage, the caterpillar finds a safe place and does a type of wiggle dance.  Not having my phone there are not pictures of videos to show, Luckily for you, this is the day of the internet so you can watch one from the USFWS. Watching it jump, and swing, and vibrate we were prepared to watch the stage before our eyes.  But it didn't.  And when we came back it was broken.  Bummer. Both the Kid and I were so let down.  I had a moment of pity as I should have protected the caterpillar from all the mean things in life.  Life is life and death is part of life too.

Later in the week, after another trip to the doctor for the Kid (he developed a rash to an antibiotic and was covered in head to toe rash) I stopped by the local mom and pop feed store for some happiness in fluff form.  Knowing they would have little peppers as it was just Easter, we swung in to review their newest collections.  Boy howdy, did they have a ton.  Some of the most plentiful in multi stages of age were bantams, Rhode Island reds, and Buff Orphingtons.  There were hundreds of little peepers all warm and toasty in their red light cages.  The Kid wanted one of every one.  While admiring the flock, the chicken man said there were some pullets around back if we wanted to see them too.  Pullets that were the same costs as chicks, oh by the way he quickly said.  What, the same cost!  Excuse me sir, you must have made a mistake as pullets are always more expensive.  He said wait till you see them.  Oh good grief, these pullets have been attacked. Some were almost completely featherless.  The Kid fell in love.

And I am a sucker.  I took pity on the poor Kid and the crappy week he was having.  We arrived home from the doctor with a new round of medication creme, an over the counter anti-histamine, and four new peepers.  Not having an clue as to how they were going to integrate into the old flock, the old flock was kicked out the coop, the new flock was moved into a dog kennel so they could see around, and immediately plans were developed for housing quarters.  Quarters had to be something quick and temporary as these flufferbottoms already six weeks in age and would double in size quickly.

Upon inspection of the birds in the box, the Planner (who had been warned of their state of affairs) just shook his head and looked at me with pity.  What! Like you could have resisted the Kid any more than me?  Please.  Besides, their issues are only cosmetic.  They will look better. Later.  Maybe...

Two walls of the coop are the actual run itself.  The third wall uses some of the remaining re-purposed outside decking from the shower project.  Spacing between the slats of the deck boards allowing the chickens to interact with each other but not enough room for escape was judged with the thickness of a 2x4.  The fourth wall was from the winter rye seeder.  This fourth wall was easily removed so water and pellet feeders could be replenished daily. Within less than an hour, a temporary 4x4 coop was built.  From start to finish, an hour.  Never has a project at Plan473 taken this little of time.  Guinness Books this project time line.  If all projects could be completed with this ease and within this time frame, there would be lots more projects completed.

Somewhere over the course of a year and half since last usage, the Gatorade Water bottle was lost.  What made the Gatorade bottle remarkable was the hefty handle system.  If this water bottle is going to have to be used for more than a few weeks, the handle will break as it bends and sags with the weight of just a half gallon.  After corralling and a quick adjustment to the pellet PVC feeder built during the original Chicken Boot, the new peepers were set in their temporary home.

Trying not to feel pity for their state of affairs, I had to be reminded they are just chickens and that this parched, bare housing is short lived.   No chicken swing, no brightly colored exterior color to bring happiness, no fresh grass to scratch.  Poor pitiful existence.  Funny thing about pity, it is a feeling.  Therefore pity only affects the person who feels it, not the person being pitied upon.  Guess the chickens don't feel pity.  No pity party for them.

Doing the Monarch Caterpillar Crunch

Couple of weeks ago I went to the local mom and pop feed store for some chicken nourishment. At the front of their parking curbs were all these beautiful in bloom flowers.  Known for the native plants and needing some new color in my life, I had a quick looky loo.  A plant aficionado I am not but I can read the plant pots. Reading milkweed upon the pot I snatched this beauty up as milkweeds are hard to come by and the butterflies love them.  Especially the monarch butterflies. Caterpillars, which there were gobs of all over every plant in all shapes and sizes, were free of charge.  Excellent! Pretty plant for me, free snacks for chickens.

A quick re-pot into something much more pleasant on the eyes and with more room for plant growth, the new found deck beauty was all set. Other than the coral honeysuckle, all the other plants, both volunteer native and bought native, are all not orange in color.  Oh well, the lantana is orange.  But as it never blooms and looks like death, it is not counted.

A few days later while admiring this new beauty I noticed many leaves had been feasted upon and were invaded with aphids.  Oh, those drated aphids.  They have been plaguing my garden since way back when, a time way before the Kid even.  They leave a sticky mess on the leaves, damage the plant from fresh growth, and worse yet are carries of plant viruses.  The best way to kill them is to smush them between two fingers or invest in an arsenal of ladybugs.  Having no ladybugs to invest in, I smushed until my fingers were stained yellow.

During the attack on aphids, this leaf chomping caterpillar was seen happily chomping on of the flower buds.  All that was left of the bud was the stem!  Upon further inspection, it became visible that many of the buds had been chomped away along with several sections of new leaves.

At this rate, these five chompers would have eaten the entire plant in just a few weeks. Poor plant can't even grow new leaves to compensate for that of which were eaten.  Not to mention, if left to their devices there would not be any pretty flowers either. Not too large in size yet, he and his other party goers were given the boot.  Dang, I just wanted a simple plant for the monarch butterflies to have when then migrated thru. Why does everything in nature have to be so destructive?

Later that evening when reading on how to care for milkweed in preparation to all the fabulous butterflies that would arrive, I discovered something horrifying.  Horrifically horrifying.  Single-handedly, I had killed close to a dozen monarch butterfly caterpillars!  AHH!!! How irresponsible of me not to have know.  The thing I was trying to save, I killed.  Oh, the shame.

Luckily for me about a week later there was lots of evidence of caterpillars again.  Where did they come from as monarchs are not currently on migration?  Apparently, they lay their eggs within the plant where ever they are grown and the plants travel with caterpillar eggs to their new destinations. With this new found knowledge I took great appreciation in watching the workings of these leave chompers.  My goodness.  They literally just eat from the moment they are hatched to the moment they chrysalis.  Amazing.  Have to say I am a little jealous as there are plenty of days where I would just love to eat and eat.

And not just absently eat.  They eat with a methodical neatness at a high rate of speed.  The above video is 16X the normal speed filmed. What took 5:22 minutes to record and watch in rapt fascination is now just a 1:20 minute clip.  If humans ate that quickly we would be compared with pigs in a pen.  Oink, slurp, snort.

Upon watching a caterpillar devour this bud, I looked for new signs of eating at every possible moment.  Most times the signs were seen but not the action.  Having noticed this fresh dropping, I soon discovered the doer. Man on man did I strike it rich too.  He was a monster and he was still eating.  Quickly grabbing a comfortable seat, I took to recording.

Over a series of video and just over 20 minutes, I watched a leaf disappear before my eyes.  Winds in the 30mph gusts did not deter the affair.  Humans within a 5 foot space did not deter the affair.  It was an absolutely incredible moment.  My only regret is that my video recording skills are less than BBC documentary level. Learning to cut and splice videos for smooth transitions is a learned skill and probably requires more power than my free video maker can accomplish.  But hey, you get the picture, right?

Life for this leaf started out this morning as a leaf the length of my index finger (3").  By the time the leaf chomper had his fill, the leaf left was a tidbit.  A speck. A pinch.

Seriously, I don't know how even to describe something this small in terms of leave.  It is just the stem and a bit.

And while I am trying to best photograph this chomped remains, I can see through the leaves the caterpillar on his next found feast. Chomp, chomp.

Spring Has Officially Bug-an

Spring officially began on Wednesday, March 20, two weeks ago today.  However, spring at Plan473 has been in bloom for over a month.  A month into springy goodness, there are now more vibrant flowers in more vibrant colors. Blue is my most favorite color and blue flowers are hard to come by. This tiny specimum is the size of a nickel and sadly only appears for the day.

Did you know that while there are blue plants/flowers in nature, blue in animals is rare?  In fact this common misconception of blue in nature is so wide spread there are gobs of articles/videos trying to educate about true blue.

In nature, the most common pigment are carotenoids in orange, red, and yellow. Of which there are plenty of flowers in bloom.  Some are planted like the milkweed (orange), the hibiscus and bottlebrush (red), and the esperanza (yellow).  Remaining are free range self propagated with names unknown. 

With warmer spring days (finally!) comes the bugs.  Insects.  Bugs.  Insects.  They are not one in the same as all bugs are indeed insects but not all insects are bugs.  Ask a Biologist, a fabulous web page from the University of Arizona, states the differences lie in their mouth parts. True bugs are classified as having a rigid proboscis unable to be rolled up.  However, as science is ever evolving as our knowledge is increased, bug people and taxonomy people are forever changing the representation.  Being neither a bug person or a taxonomist, for the sake of this post they are all bugs.

According to the Smithsonian Bug Info there are about 10 quintillion insects alive at any one time. Do you know how many zeros a quintillion has?  19!  Plan473 clearly does not have the tiniest fraction of a quintillion insects, but the number of bugs are on the rise everyday. 

Like the vast majority of the flowers they inhabit, the bug/insects are unnamed.  With exception to a few nasties, the bugs don't bug me.  Even the nasties that bug me are only because of what they represent.  For example, roaches.  Nasty buggers, the lot of them.  Wood roaches are these huge over size rolly polly with no wings, no buggy antenna.  Yet, they creep me out.  Unlike their america cousins, these come out morning, noon, and night.  Unlike their cousin counterparts, they tend to stay outside and have never once been seen in the house.  Wood roaches are whatever.  American roaches, may they die a painful death. 

Other insects/bugs are more desirable.  Bees. Bees are insects everybody should love, protect, and cherish. Without bees, pollination would cease.  Without bees, there would be no fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and in some cases flowers. Without bees there would be no honey.  A world without honey is not a world worth living in.  Don't believe me, then check out the Honeypedia website.  Bumble bees love the hibiscus and the esperanza flowers.  Watching a big ol fat bumble bee land and walk into a delicate esperanza flower is fun.  The bee weighs so much sometimes the flower drops and the bee falls out. Seriously, bumble bees are the size of bite size carrots!

Then there are the tolerated insects.  Bumble bees and honey bee emit warm fuzzy feelings.  Yella Jackets and Red Wasps lend to swatting with a shoe feeling.  Lend being the key word.  To date not a single yella jacket nor red wasp has been killed, intentionally.  And they are constantly within killing range as they both love the lush bottlebrush. Love and share the wealth, not love and horde on the flowers within the walk path so as to be bothered every time a human walks by. The Kid is baffled daily at our insistance that he may not kill the wasps.  Every insect serves it purpose and yella jackets and red wasps have a purpose too. Live and let live.  If they become aggressive, then they will be relocated to the bottom of the next closet shoe. 

Insects that are loved by all so much so that there are people who travel from location to location to admire in their native surroundings are butterflies/moths.  Butterflies are not moths and moths are not butterflies.  Butterfly antenna are club shaped with a bulb end.  Moth antennae are feathery or saw edged in shape. The Library of Congress gives detailed differences by wings, anatomy, behavior, and reproduction.  Butterfly or moth, they are both beautiful in their own right. Spring is prime season for monarch butterflies and monarch butterflies love native flowers. Monarch butterflies are just one of the dozen butterflies/moths presents at Plan473 this year.  Nothing knowing what classification the many other fall into, I can only distinguish by size and color.  There has already been a small yellow b/m the size of a quarter,  a white moth with black dot an 1-1.5" in length, a butterfly similar in coloring to a monarch but smaller, a white moth the size of a quarter with one black spot on each wing, and swallowtail butterfly with blue tip wings to name a few.

Nuisance insects are those that cause no real damage but can be plaque worthy are ants.  Plan473 has tiny black ants, sugar ants, the much hated fire ants, carpenter ants, and ants with and without wings.  Tiny black ant are only ever seen on flowers such as the yellow one above.  The are the size of sugar ants but jet black.  Sugar ants are known to come inside when the weather dries out and will get into everything.  None biting, they are a mess to deal with.  Fire ants on the other hand are truly the only insect that will be killed without qualms.  Not native and completely destructive, these biting b******* will bite without instigation and will continue to bit until you squash their stupid heads. Carpenter ants are harmless for the most part but become a nuisance during hummingbird season as they will raid the feeder and die in a sugar induce coma inside clogging the feeder for the hummers. Ants are a take and leave it situation. 

Insects like plants come in an array of colors too.  What plants the insects like I guess depends upon the insect and the plant.  The above picture of the coral bean flower with its toxic seeds.  It is said that hummingbirds love coral bean flowers. Never have seen a hummerbird at the color bean flower nor an insect for that matter.  I have seen the chickens eat the entire plant when it is young and tender several times.  They have yet to die.

 Another plague worthy insect Plan473 has in abundance already are grasshoppers. Currently they are small and dead grass colored but if the past years hold true by summers end they will be bright green and the size of quarters.  Worse, they could be the tan-green 2 inch long buggers.  Indifferent to grasshoppers as a whole, the large stick sized flying for a quarter mile grasshoppers creep me out a little.  The light tan grass colored grasshoppers tend to stick to the grass but have been known to be found this purple green vine along with spiders and little black ants.  Insects love this little vine.

Insects are a much needed part of nature.  Some come and go without any evidence.  Others not so much.  Even when not in plague proportions, insects can reek havoc on plants.  This native ground cover was fine at first.  When the leaves expanded to full width, the insect damage was visible.  This insect bugged in and out and was never once seen. Yet another unnamable plant, I can tell you this about it.  The flower is the size of a half dollar, smells slightly sweet with a sick bitter undertone, is an insect magnet as bees, ants, and butterflies/moths have been seen upon its leaves, and prefers the understory rather than the full sun. Interesting is the insect only bothered with the leaves. Reminds me of stinkbug marks on tomatoes.  Hmm, haven't seen stinkbugs. Gonna have to keep an eye out for them.

Honeybees are just one of the few insects of which there is never enough of in nature.  Ladybugs are another.  Ladybugs are excellent aphid controllers.  Ladybugs are also great pollinators. There are both native and non native species.  As with all non native species, they push out the native and are not as beneficial to the nature environment as native species. Real native ladybugs were seen several days on this white wispy flower, new this spring.  In fact, this was the only plant on the whole property.  Unusual in coloring, it was stark white on a tall stalk with small feather leaves at the bottom.  Very pretty and lovely with bright red ladybugs.

The only other white flower is the of the olive tree on the deck.  Whereas the pretty white flower above stayed for several days, the olive tree flower is here and done within a day.  Still alive and on the plant for days, it is only bright white for one day. Another surprising note about the olive tree it is lack of insects.  Does the flower not smell? Does the stamen not produce food? Being native and non toxic, why the lack of insects? It is really bugging me about its lack of bugs.

Spring in South Texas has yet to let me down in coloring plant/flowers/insects/bugs.  Even with the cooler weather the show has been spectacular.  With April already in full bloom, summer heat is just around the corner.  Summer heat with its summer biting bugs.  Buggers.  So for now, I will continue to enjoy the nice cool wet spring.