Fighting Foes: Caterpillars, Bears, and Ourselves

So, crabapples.  We inherited three crabapple trees of unknown heritage when we moved to our property.  Two were tiny, twisted, and poorly placed.  They had to go.  But one was beautiful and fully formed.  For two summers we watched, waited, hoped, and despaired as flowers and leaves formed before forest tent caterpillars attacked. 

The tree was left naked. Two years in a row.  We discussed chopping the last tree down.

But then came spring 2015.  We watched, waited, and hoped again.  The caterpillars came.  They seemed as ferocious, as voracious, but...  did we detect they were fewer in number?  We held our breath as leaf after leaf of the crab was folded around a cocooning caterpillar.  Still, somehow.....

Ahh!  It survived!   And apples grew.  This was a little toughie, this tree.  It produced a bounty of tiny, shiny apples.

And now the bears were on the move.  I'd seen sign of them in the back four and in the neighbourhood, and though our tree was inside the dog's fenced yard, I wasn't going to give the bears even a chance at our first harvest in three years.  So we picked them.

We picked them, and picked them.

And then we picked some more.

We threw the apples that had blemishes to the chickens. Scout helped by picking up every apple that didn't make it over the fence. He didn't want them, he just didn't want the chickens to have them.  He's very helpful that way.

We finished picking the apples.  The tree once again looked a little run down, a little rough around the edges.  But we had actually vanquished our fearsome foes of caterpillar and bear.

After the frenzy of picking we realized we had a bit of a harvest on our hands.  68 pounds of harvest, to be precise.  "Oh, my goodness!" sez I.  "I didn't think of what to do with them!"  And so it goes.

For hours, for days, we chopped, de-stemmed, cooked, and strained apples.

For all our bravado, all our hard work, all our relentless picking, de-stemming, etcetera, we ended up with several jars of crabapple jelly and some bags of frozen crabapple juice concentrate.  We were tired, our fingers were stained brown, and we thought:

"Hmm, maybe we'll get lucky and the caterpillars will be back again next year."

Pickle Magic

Phew!  Finally back on the blogging horse.  No excuses, just gardening, harvesting, roofing...  Okay, I have a hundred excuses in my pocket ready to go.  But still.  At least I came back. 

So here's something I've been up to this summer:  Pickles.  The last time we made pickles was four years, a different town, and many grey hairs ago.  We ended up with 50 quart jars of pickles, and now we have two left.  And, oh boy, do they have some torque.  Imagine, four years to absorb all that extra garlic!

So this time our dill pickles should be milder.  We had hoped to make 20 quart jars of dills, but due to overzealous filling broke a couple jars in processing.  Such is life.  

We also made sweet pickles this year, which will make my pickle-cheese-and-cracker-craving tummy happy.

We bought our cucumbers and dill at the farmer's market and rushed home to get to work.

In a few short hours we had pickles to last us the year.

And that's pickle magic!

Chicken: It's not What's for Dinner

Our latest yard visitor of note:

The biddies were in their garden, doing the things that chickens do.

Penny, Molly, and Bessie dust bathing

I was in the house when I heard the squawk.  Or was it a scream?  It did sound a little like sheer terror.  Which is slightly more alarming than the sound a chicken makes when it lays an egg.  But only slightly.   

I looked into the garden and saw one chicken, Jo, tucked into some tall grasses in a corner.  I looked out another window and saw the other chickens high-tailing it into the coop.  I looked into the trees above the chicken run and saw this:

I picked up the phone.

me: "Hi-it's-me, will Bald Eagles go after chickens?"

husband: "yes, why?"

me: "There's one watching the girls from a tree directly above the chicken run."

husband: "You'd better get them inside then."

me: "Okay-bye."

I ran outside (with camera in tow) and realized that backup had already arrived.  The eagle looked up

and saw this.

Crows started dive-bombing the eagle.  I thanked the crows as I ran to the garden, escorted a distressed Jo into the coop, and closed the door.  By this time the crows had handily escorted the eagle on its way.

I left the girls in their protective coop and run for the rest of the day.  And that is why we don't free range our chickens.  Just too many wild animals looking for a meal.  What a beautiful predator.

The Heat is On

Here's what a little heat will do:

We are eating our first few zucchini (Costata Romanesco).  Beautiful, stripey, delicious.

The acorn and spaghetti squash are out of control and the squash are about halfway grown.

The calendula is bursting.

We've been eating cucumbers and carrots with every meal but breakfast.

And the flower garden is just ridiculous.

This all has nothing to do with me.  I've just been the watergirl for all this bounty.  Next year, when it's cold and dreary and nothing is growing except the chickweed, I will remember this summer fondly.

Name That Bird! Part 2

...and to continue,

Guinevere

The other main character from my favourite movie, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.  She is the more buttoned-up counterpart to Delysia, another Silver-Laced Wyandotte.  More straight-laced, but very much in charge.  She lays medium sized warm brown eggs.

Prudence

I named her this specifically so I could call her Broody Pru.  She is a lovely little Easter Egger that lays small pale-green eggs.  Her father was Ameraucana and her mother, Cochin.  Cochins are known for being very broody.  Prudence is very broody.  She ends up in chicken jail every six weeks or so, but that's a story for another post.  She is such a nice girl but, sadly, someone has to be at the bottom of the pecking order.  That's her.  She bears it with no small amount of grace and growling.

Matilda

Matilda is the Welsummer with the biggest comb, lays the biggest eggs, and may well be the biggest, baddest chicken out there.  No one gives her any grief.  She looks very much like a dinosaur and I think the other hens would agree.  This is the boss.

Penny

Penny is a Silver-Laced Wyandotte with a beautiful comb and delightful, no-nonsense personality.  She gets the job done, just like Henny Penny.  Her comb is the largest of all the Wyandottes, but still low-profile.  Smaller combs hold up better to winter cold.  Penny lays medium brown eggs.

Bessie

Bossy Bessie is an Easter Egger with attitude.  She is small, but don't tell her that.  She is always first.  First to come when you call, first to get out the door, first to talk to you, first to take any treat offered, first to come running to the camera.  She is not at the top of the pecking order, but don't tell her that either.
 

So, now you've met all the girls.  They're a ragtag gang of toughs, but they keep us entertained and fed, so we put up with their shenanigans.  And, most of the time, they put up with us.