Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[RoyalChick]

Maybe. But if I try to pull them up the back part of the house might fall since all the roots are now going under the house!

I'm going to try and trim them this year and hopefully next year they will give more.

Hard pruning with a view to giving at least some of them enough room to grow. You may even be able to prune alternate ones down to being 'mini trees' and have the others grow over the top of them.

Tree pruning tax: another 2fer. Tassels and Sylvie.

 

[bgmathteach]

I wish I had pears.

Time to get planting! In a year or two you will.

 

[Sylvester017]

Oh my! I don't know much about trees. I was thinking young trees. I'd hate to cut trees that old! I wonder if thinning them would even make them produce at this point.

Old is old ~ every living thing including plants & trees have an end. Redwood trees have long lifespans yet they eventually have to die or be thinned out of the forest.

 

[bgmathteach]

i might try it again ~ but honestly at the price of pumpkins here I might just stick w/ sweet potatoes which the flock had today & loved it!

I always buy at the end of the season when they are on sale. If you pick well and store well, they will keep for a month or two (not sugar pumpkins, but the field pumpkins) even buying them that late in the season. I sometimes get a few for free from teh local farm stand down the road when they close for the season in late October if they have any left. A pig farmer takes most of them, but they generally don't take all the little field pumpkins, nor the gourds...and certain of the gourds have eatable flesh in them.

I will have to get a picture - I think that is what sprung up practically overnight in my compost pile, and has now taken over! IT has leaves like the squash family, but white flowers...so I'm guessing a gourd....not sure if it will have time to set and grow a bunch before a frost - but am hoping that whatever it is, it does produce some edible (for the chooks at least) fruit!

 

[featherhead007]

I always buy at the end of the season when they are on sale. If you pick well and store well, they will keep for a month or two (not sugar pumpkins, but the field pumpkins) even buying them that late in the season. I sometimes get a few for free from teh local farm stand down the road when they close for the season in late October if they have any left. A pig farmer takes most of them, but they generally don't take all the little field pumpkins, nor the gourds...and certain of the gourds have eatable flesh in them.

I will have to get a picture - I think that is what sprung up practically overnight in my compost pile, and has now taken over! IT has leaves like the squash family, but white flowers...so I'm guessing a gourd....not sure if it will have time to set and grow a bunch before a frost - but am hoping that whatever it is, it does produce some edible (for the chooks at least) fruit!

A neighbor wanted to give me some pumpkins from his garden. I said please gourd right ahead!

 

[SimpleJenn]

My dad got me 12 big pumpkins and a ton of gourds last fall, they lasted all winter! I also fed most of the decorative corn but we ended up dumping the last of it out in the field for the deer.
Today my dog had dental surgery, they removed 4 teeth and found he had a few already missing. I think they never grew in, he had a bunch of baby teeth that took forever to fall out too. Poor boy will need his food soaked for the next week.

 

[featherhead007]

A neighbor wanted to give me some pumpkins from his garden. I said please gourd right ahead!

 

[featherhead007]

It’s final!! I’m going to the coast tomorrow morning. Leaving this rat race for a while. There is an airstrip near Pismo Beach. Now to dig out my bathing suit and sunscreen!

 

[Sylvester017]

I always buy at the end of the season when they are on sale. If you pick well and store well, they will keep for a month or two (not sugar pumpkins, but the field pumpkins) even buying them that late in the season. I sometimes get a few for free from teh local farm stand down the road when they close for the season in late October if they have any left. A pig farmer takes most of them, but they generally don't take all the little field pumpkins, nor the gourds...and certain of the gourds have eatable flesh in them.

I will have to get a picture - I think that is what sprung up practically overnight in my compost pile, and has now taken over! IT has leaves like the squash family, but white flowers...so I'm guessing a gourd....not sure if it will have time to set and grow a bunch before a frost - but am hoping that whatever it is, it does produce some edible (for the chooks at least) fruit!

The squash species plants take up too much growing space, watermelon too, & give sparse produce for the amount of space the vines take up. Our hens love cantaloupe so one year planted it & got ONE cantaloupe ~ not a good choice for a small garden space.

5 yrs ago a rogue stray cantaloupe seed took root by the chicken's sandbox that never had fruit but we let it grow so the hens could have fun w/ it.

As for pumpkins here there are no leftovers in pumpkin lots. The pumpkin lots here are empty day after Halloween, the stores dont lower prices either. My neighbor grows gourds every year & gives us a couple good size gourds. They have a long shelf life & DH knows how to cook them up for us & the hens.

DH sifted out the sandbox yesterday & added a new bag of sand that was still a little damp & the hens basked in it.

 

[Sylvester017]

@Ponypoor ~ some more trivia ~ talking about dark feathers around the eyes of Silkie chicks in addition to their black skin, legs/toes, beaks, eyeballs ~ the feathers found around the eyes of the chick are always dark feathers (the pure white chicks seem the exception ?). Here's our dark partridge chick w/light gray face. She shows dark feathers around the eyeballs of her little gray chickie face. (The face/head turned completely black later.)

There are blue/gold partridge, buff/blue partridge, dark partridge, silver partridge, Moorhead partridge, & probably red partridge by now too! Why partridge Silkies have so many chick feather color variations is a mystery to me as our dark chick turned almost completely black w/a very very faint gold collar and speckled gold wing tips ~ guess that's why she was a "dark" partridge cuz the gold accents were faint.

All our Silkies have been partridge & one was not partridge ~ she was an all-black Silkie. We have a blue Silkie now but it's like having a partridge only there's no gold undertones in a blue Silkie so technically not a partridge.

I really should read more on genetics but then I've never had interest in technical sciency studies!

How are your Silkies looking now?