Friday, October 01, 2010

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up.....


Persimmons.



Apparently, we have a wild persimmon tree. I'm not entirely sure what to DO with a wild persimmon, but they look quite lovely hanging from the branches right now.


And I suppose the good news is that with every wild fruit tree we discover, I have renewed hope that an orchard is a possibility on the farm. Still looking for a good wild crab tree and am surprised to have not found one, yet....


Every week there's something new to discover.




Maybe next week we can find an elusive paw-paw....


The guineas are slowly beginning to lay eggs. We got the guineas around mid-May, and by the end of September, a few eggs were beginning to appear. Problem is, they are appearing in the strangest places. A few, with odd shell, or rubbery shells, appeared under the perches in the guinea hutch, which seems reasonable enough, although it would appear that the guinea who "laid the egg" did so while still on the perch - score zero for maternal instincts. More eggs have appeared randomly in the tomato patch, one was found along the wall of the house and one over by the compost heap. The fact that these birds are able to reproduce at all is clearly a miracle.

A lovely young lady at our local farmers market sells guinea eggs and tells me they are tasty and nutritious. So, IF the guineas laid eggs and IF we could collect them, or IF they went broody and hatched them out, that would be neat, no?

Soooo, I made the guineas a little nesting box. I even put a golfball in one of the boxes, as I had read somewhere that this might give these dimwitted birds the notion that THIS, the NESTING BOX would be a good spot to put, oh, you know, anything one might have that looks vaguely spherical. And off-whitish.




The nesting box has been an utter failure. Although one guinea does appear to have hollowed out a wee spot to rest, directly UNDERNEATH the entire nesting box itself, no one appears to be using the boxes. No one. My next plan of attack is to cover the nesting box in some old juniper twigs and see if this sort of "camo" will encourage the birds to want to nest in the boxes. Stupid guineas.

In the meantime, on the other side of the coop, my chicken nesting boxes house sleepy chickens and as of yet, no eggs, either, but that's because the chickens are still a little too young. But by next month, I'm hoping we'll start to see some chicken eggs in my beautiful nesting boxes.(And, yes, I'm inordinately proud of the nesting boxes - it gave me a chance to learn how to use our new nail gun - FUN! While using up lots of old scraps of wood from our house reno! Free! Sort of...)