EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[Cynthia12]

colton? he he he yes I love fresh smelling stuff too, cotton and amber ? I am using that now as well. Just used up my clover and aloe, kids want cherry almond but its not ready yet.

These I cut and are curing, pics suck as I just snapped a few after cut, Vanilla Birch, Mac Apple, Jasmine Honeysuckle.... MAC apple is amazingly fresh smelling, and the Jas Honey I finally found a vendor whos type I like smelling! not too potent and sweet. love it, sticking with them on this one for sure! That soap pic doesn't show the pretty pale yellow swirls, I love the way that one got. I took other pics of the rest but wont overload the thread with them ha! I have 47 types curing right now, quite a few are special orders though. I have babyshower star soaps, 4H soaps, Sorority soaps, and people that order a whole loaf of the type they love, I try to make an extra loaf when I do those, to share with others too. Pink Sugar I am in love with the smell, but the soap gets fugly with that vanillan in it, dark and brown.

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Ha..yes, the cotton smell. Had to order more. You are out of the Mandarin... .

 

[Pensmaster]

Nearly 1/3 of all wild birds have disappeared in North America in the last 50 years. 3 billion.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/09/18/science.aaw1313

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-09-19/nearly-3-billion-birds-are-missing

Likely habitat loss and other human activity - like barn cats.

I remember West Nile killing a lot of birds in the jay, crow and cardinal type birds.

Not many insects here now either. Frog and bird population decline following lack of insects. I can now leave the screen door open without much fear of an insect entering.

When we first moved here 20 years ago at least 10 varieties of birds and there were frogs everywhere. Now I’d be hard pressed to find 5 varieties of birds and frogs are still out there but much fewer.

 

[Cynthia12]

That's sad Pen...we have plenty of bugs I guess. We are seeing so many bats this year, just before sundown, flying low, getting those bugs. We know we've certainly had mosquitos this year, when we don't usually have them like this year around our homes. A lot of rain this year. It's been fun seeing different birds..oh, and we have waay too many worms in our lawn! It's lumpy..the Robin's love it. Even with them eating up a storm in the spring, those worms are there. Huge, would make for great fishing. Would only need to take about three for a whole day of fishing! Night crawlers. Creepy to catch. Makes me shiver to think if grabbing one..lol .my chickens never ate them. Well, can't say never. Saw it happen once on a while.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Not many insects here now either. Frog and bird population decline following lack of insects. I can now leave the screen door open without much fear of an insect entering.

When we first moved here 20 years ago at least 10 varieties of birds and there were frogs everywhere. Now I’d be hard pressed to find 5 varieties of birds and frogs are still out there but much fewer.

The concern over declining amphibian populations and even extinctions has been known for over 50 years.
I have noticed a drop in some bird species but my experience is possibly due to the fact that I no longer have the plethora of wild bird feeders I used to have. I had hummingbird feeders, oriole feeders, several tube feeders, thistle feeder, a safflower/cardinal feeder, a big woodpecker feeder(filled with tree nuts) and a platform feeder for ground feeding birds. All day there would be goldfinch and purple finches, flickers, nuthatches and up to 4 species of woodpeckers, I haven't seen one of those this year. I haven't seen an indigo bunting, scarlet tanager or bluebird here in years. And bluebird is the Missouri state bird.
I have a lot of frogs, toads and several species of reptiles here. I don't even have a body of water on my property other than a seasonal rain garden by the house. The nearest permanent bodies of water are a small pond about 300 yards behind me and a creek about a 1/4 mile down the hill. Just walking through the back of the property where the chickens, garden and bee hives are will get some skinks, frogs and occasionally a toad scurrying out of the way.
Maybe your situation is more of a prolonged drought issue.
There is no shortage of insects, spiders, etc. here.
We've had a disturbing influx of the invasive stink bugs.

 

[Pensmaster]

The concern over declining amphibian populations and even extinctions has been known for over 50 years.
I have noticed a drop in some bird species but my experience is possibly due to the fact that I no longer have the plethora of wild bird feeders I used to have. I had hummingbird feeders, oriole feeders, several tube feeders, thistle feeder, a safflower/cardinal feeder, a big woodpecker feeder(filled with tree nuts) and a platform feeder for ground feeding birds. All day there would be goldfinch and purple finches, flickers, nuthatches and up to 4 species of woodpeckers, I haven't seen one of those this year. I haven't seen an indigo bunting, scarlet tanager or bluebird here in years.
I have a lot of frogs, toads and several species of reptiles here. I don't even have a body of water on my property other than a seasonal rain garden by the house. The nearest permanent bodies of water are a small pond about 300 yards behind me and a creek about a 1/4 mile down the hill. Just walking through the back of the property where the chickens, garden and bee hives are will get some skinks, frogs and occasionally a toad scurrying out of the way.
Maybe your situation is more of a prolonged drought situation.
There is no shortage of insects, spiders, etc. here.
We've had a disturbing influx of the invasive stink bugs.

We still have the ponds in the area even through the drought I kept one going. Past couple years have been normal for rainfall. Past season probably above average. The sounds the frogs made around January and February were deafening.

Even the fly population has been very low this year. Mosquitoes I think I’ve been pestered by 10 all season and that number is high. I haven’t seen a June bug here in a few years. They used to hang on the screen door.

We used to have what I called alligator lizards here. I did see a Blue Skink in the orchard the other day. Speaking of the orchard not one worm in the 15 or so apples I cut up yesterday. I’m sure there are some. I do not spray any of my trees.

Wasps that were very numerous such that you couldn’t go outside with food are so few in number I find myself trying to protect them. I literally was watching a nest of them on my chicken coop thought about spraying them as they were near the coop door. Decided to leave them. Over the course of a week their numbers dropped and now it’s empty.

Either I’m deaf and blind or something else is at work here. As to being hotter this summer has been milder than most.
We do have a new subdivision directly to the west of me, 5 acres lots. They maybe spraying for bugs just not sure how much that would be affecting my area. I don’t know if they are spraying or not.

That's sad Pen...we have plenty of bugs I guess. We are seeing so many bats this year, just before sundown, flying low, getting those bugs. We know we've certainly had mosquitos this year, when we don't usually have them like this year around our homes. A lot of rain this year. It's been fun seeing different birds..oh, and we have waay too many worms in our lawn! It's lumpy..the Robin's love it. Even with them eating up a storm in the spring, those worms are there. Huge, would make for great fishing. Would only need to take about three for a whole day of fishing! Night crawlers. Creepy to catch. Makes me shiver to think if grabbing one..lol .my chickens never ate them. Well, can't say never. Saw it happen once on a while.

Few bats left which due to the bug population decline that doesn’t surprise me. I’m glad they headed your way. I miss them flying around.
I tried feeding some worms to my chickens. They looked at me like your kidding right?

 

[Cynthia12]

Pen! Wasps! Now those were bad this year here too!

 

[Pensmaster]

Pen! Wasps! Now those were bad this year here too!

They were in past years. This year very few.

 

[daxigait]

@Akrnaf2 Shalom! I hope your school week has been better. I could really use some suggestions of what to do with this Jerusalem artichoke. someone suggested years ago to plant something new and try it okay I've got a bunch of it now what do I do with it?
@Sally Sunshine which are your favorite oils for like a face or gardener's soap?

 

[daxigait]

@ChickenCanoe @Pensmaster you guys can have some of iFrogz the rocket is deafening at night in the summertime oh, well not quite but it can get annoying.

of course, I will take their noisy any day over the cicada and all the stupid grasshopper types

 

[Pensmaster]

@ChickenCanoe @Pensmaster you guys can have some of iFrogz the rocket is deafening at night in the summertime oh, well not quite but it can get annoying.

of course, I will take their noisy any day over the cicada and all the stupid grasshopper types

The frogs used to be deafening. So few numbers now they are much less annoying now.