My chickens use their swing all the time, but usually jump off before I can get a good video (because treats!) I finally managed to get a good shot of a hen enjoying the swing. So here is your smile for the day.
Swinging
Helping my memory
According to Native American seed, fall is the time for sowing wild flowers. I’ve done this for the last three years, and I never remember where I’ve sewn what in the meadow. Neat little plant markers don’t work so well when you have to mow it all down (after it has gone to seed, of course). So this year I took a picture of the meadow and marked up the photo on my phone. I took a picture of the seed packs too, as a key. We’ll see if this helps identify what does well! It might take a couple years. I had some plants come up two years after I spread the seed (I’m looking at you, standing cypress.) American basket flowers are my favorite, so they get an extra dose of chance.
Another way to hang pumpkins
I admit, I really just wanted to get the pumpkin out to the chickens without much fuss with the knife. I could have cut it in half and left it at that, but since it takes a few days for the chickens to consume the squash, I like to hang it off the ground so the ants and dirt don’t get in. (Or at least as much dirt. Chickens have dirty beaks when they’ve been pecking away at the ground.) So I used a gimlet (very neat, handy tool for making holes, predates the electric drill by a bit), and put cotton twine through the hole to make a loop.
Cat hammock
We have a few cat hammocks up in the catio, both inside and outside. Izzy loves the inside nap spots, and recently jumped up to the outside sling, probably just to establish that she can. She only gets free roaming of the back yard under supervision, mainly because she runs up trees and gets stuck. The hammocks are made of a double layer of outdoor fabric, with ties on each corner and a grommet in the center. We learned early that the fabric will hold water, so the grommet lets the rain drain and the bed dry out faster. (Side note, an easy way to sew in the ties is to tuck them inside when sewing the two layers with right sides together, like you would for a pillow with lace or piping. Leave a gap, turn the hammock right side out, then reinforce the edge and ties by stitching around again.)
Happy Spider Plant
It has taken three years, but I finally found the right pot, in the right window, for my spider plant to be happy. I’m frankly amazed it made it as long as it did looking as sickly as it did. But now there are flowers! And soon there will be spider plant babies! Hurray! (If you don’t know, spider plants are quite hardy and it says quite a bit about my lack of plant skills that I nearly managed to kill it.)
