Ok - so I’m behind. There’s been a lot going on. A little over a week ago we had a bad storm. Lots of branches all over the yard, fortunately none on the house. We had some trees fall down. It’s a real mess I haven’t even had a chance to clean up yet.
This branch here fell just a few feet away from the coop and the chickens loved it. Behind them you’ll see an odd lattice work structure. That’s something I built from spare wood that was meant to provide shade and something to jump on. They like it, they use it quite a bit. However, they REALLY liked this fallen branch. It was like a jungle gym for as long as it look even remotely alive. Once the leaves started to die they stayed far away.
Upcoming experiment: this is a branch from a black walnut tree. The sap of a black walnut (also in the leaves) is a substance called Jugalone. It’s toxic to a lot of plants and to a lot of bugs. Native Americans actually used it as an insecticide. I’m going to start testing with it. 100% natural sustainable insecticide. Seeing that the chickens were eating this and had no problems we’re wondering if we can even use this experimental insecticide as a mite killer/repellant for the chickens. We shall know soon enough.
Just some other pics of the fallen trees around the property.
A couple of the trunks of this American Elm are down. Too bad it was such an amazing tree.
This is one of our China Berry trees, very very pretty but invasive. Oh well.
Post a Comment