Under Construction

Keeping everyone cool here when the temperatures exceed 95 has its challenges. Our summers put everything to the test when it comes to just surviving. Plants are monitored daily with container plants needing watered at least once per day. The animals..well its not uncommon for us to refill water morning and evening. It just gets that hot here. The chickens seem to fair better than the rabbits, so we've had to take extra measures to ensure their safety. One of them includes finishing a roof over their enclosure.



This has been part of our plan for the area since the start. Trying to find time to construct it has been our challenge! There is nothing like pressure as your motivation. With the sun scorching down and knowing my dear husband was going to have to manage animal care while the kids and I were away for a week got the ball rolling. With just a couple of days to work on it this is what I've finished so far. I do plan to cover the whole enclosure with chicken wire like the chicken yard. I have the bamboo roofing tied on here until we get back.

By covering the rabbit enclosure with chicken wire, we'll be able to turn the chickens loose in there to take care of any weeds (surprisingly the rabbits would rather dig than eat grass, lol) and fire ants. The chickens LOVE to eat them. I guess its a spicy treat or something. This will save a lot of labor and be much healthier for everyone. Since I use the rabbit manure for my garden, I don't want to treat the area with any sort of fire ant or weed killer. It seems like a pretty good deal to me!

This is NOT about construction...



I plucked this huge tomato hornworm off of one of my tomato plants this year. Can you believe how large they grow? It's no wonder they can consume branches of leaves at a time on my poor tomato plants! This year I'm thankful the population of these boogers has been low. Last year I was put through the test taking care of this problem. For those looking for an organic way to handle them try bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) Some labels just say "caterpillar killer" on them and it has Bt as the active ingredient. Bt is a protein that caterpillars can't digest and that is what kills them. Humans are not harmed at all by it. You do need to reapply it on your plants after a good rain and every few weeks to keep your plants protected. Bt is not selective in the type of caterpillar it kills so be careful on where you use it. I have dill and parsley that swallowtail butterflies use for their host plants. It will kill their caterpillars too.

One personal satisfaction I get when I find a giant tomato hornworm on my tomatoes is that they "pop" green slime when I stomp on them. Gross I know, but hey...someone has to pay! Thankfully the damage done by the hormworms usually doesn't cause major harm to my tomato plants. In most cases the plant will recover just fine. I have even seen a few plants eaten to nearly nothing and recover but I still don't like 'em.

Random Pictures

Here is what's going on in my yard:



..a jumping spider hiding in a gladiola



..my rock rose that I got from this spring's plant swap is blooming



..one of four of my new castor bean plants given to me this spring. This one is a red variety



..a new variety of morning glories that I started this year. I love the color!



..one of TWO lemons on my newly planted lemon tree



..a gulf fritillary butterfly caterpillar on one of my many passion vine plants. This is their host plant. I've had quite a few of the beautiful bright orange butterflies fluttering through my back yard.

Happy 4th of July!

It's time to celebrate! I think our evening will consist of grilled out food, a crazy game of Trivial Pursuit and then to finish the evening..fireworks! We have a few that we've bought to set off tonight. The neighbors buy really nice ones too, so between all of us it should be a lot of fun. We can see the fireworks displays from several area cities (that should tell you how flat it is here) from our back yard. Since we have teenagers now, the thrill of going to see a public display is not quite as fun as setting them off in our own backyard. Thankfully, we live in the country where we CAN set them off AND we are currently not under a BURN BAN. We are commonly under those this time of year when everything is dried to crisp.

Outside of that, the work outside continues. I'm working in the veggie garden trying to keep it from drying out. Within the next few weeks I will begin to set out tomatoes and peppers for the fall garden season. Everyone around here prefers the fall garden. It seems to do much better than the spring. Most of the insect problems are reduced and all around performance is higher.

Breaking News...After months of waiting I finally have swallowtail butterfly caterpillars!! Yay!!



The fennel plants have grown HUGE and I have checked often to see if eggs have been laid on them. I was beginning to think I had missed the chance to raise some swallowtails here. That's why I am so excited to have 5 hungry caterpillars now. The swallowtail caterpillars will use parsley, dill, fennel and any member of that family as their host plant. What a beautiful caterpillar!!!