This fall is giving us the opportunity to observe some rather large insects.
A few bugs
Beautyberry
We planted an American Beautyberry last year, and this year it produced fruit!
The berries are edible, and are mildly sweet without much other flavor. I’ve heard they can be used to make jelly, but I imagine it is more for the color than the flavor.
This particular bush lives in a raised glower bed on a more shaded corner of the house. American Beautyberry is known for being shade loving.
Music and cats
I told y’all that I loved that picture of Thor on the Old Man of the North chair. I love it so much I made it a profile picture, and the app gave Thor a thought bubble that said “Share a song”. Now the picture is perfect: music and a cat.
Even though the Old Man’s face is obscured, the “wind” swirls still make it aesthetically pleasing.
Mesh repair
In the light of day I went out to repair the rips in the hardware cloth in the chicken runs so no more skunks could slips through. I took scraps of half inch hardware cloth and wired it to the damaged quarter inch hardware cloth.
I found that with two layers of hardware cloth, making a spiral of aluminum wire made it easier to lace the wire through the cloth, since I didn’t have anyone on the other side to feed the wire back to me.
After threading the spring through the layers several times, I would tighten the loops and twist in the ends. Using this method and using smaller wire “ties”, I reinforced the rips, and secured the solid mesh over the weakened areas.
I also put a layer of 2×4 no climb welded wire on the outside as protection from weed whackers. As a precaution, I have been making sure the coop is secure at night, rather than relying on run security. I do have an automatic chicken door, but I check each night that it is working, and verify it opened in the morning.
I think it was Jade that was taken down by the skunk, but it could have been Schmoo. I won’t be able to tell for sure until next molting season, since Jade has (had?) a very distinct feather loss pattern.
And now three
I lost my first chicken to predation this week. When I checked on the four remaining hens, one of the Faverolles was unmoving and had clearly been snacked on. Reviewing the camera footage showed a young skunk galavanting all over the inside of the coop. The chicken it killed was feeling poorly, she had been sleeping on the floor for a couple days rather than on the roost. I didn’t think anything of it because I’d never had a predator invade, I just built her up a throne of pine shavings in the corner so she could be close to her sisters.
I found where the skunk got in, the 1/4” hardware cloth on the meadow side of the runs is torn. I leave the coop door open all night during the summer to keep the temperatures down. For the last six years the runs have been secure enough to do so. Repairing the unauthorized entry will be in a future post.
Critters and Craft 