hongry

Is it upsetting for hens to see someone taking their eggs? I can't leave the eggs out for very long or else one or two will get pecked. Not eaten, just pecked. As if one of the hens is irritable to find someone else's eggs in her nest. That's my interpretation, anyway. I can't say this often enough: I have no idea! Those crazypants hens make no sense to me.

I never thought I'd say this in all my life, but I don't think there are enough bugs in our yard. The hens seem hungry. The first few days after they came home with us, they completely ignored the food we put out for them. Now they try to run me down and tackle me when I get into the bag. I've been giving them more table scraps, too. They scratch around as much as they ever did, but it seems more desperate, and I don't see them actually eating bugs and snails and worms very often. Before the chickens came, I practically had to kick the snails out of my way, but I hadn't seen a live snail in almost two weeks before I found one hanging precariously off of a single leaf on the wisteria vine. You have to admire that will to live.

The hens seem to be keeping my garden safe, too. It's rare now that I see a leaf with insect damage. Even though the ladies can't actually get into my garden, they seem to be working fine in the way of prevention just by being nearby.

My garden is coming along nicely. It's been hot for a few days so I pulled out the lettuce. I didn't really have anything else to put in there, so I halfheartedly planted some lima beans (probably it's too shady for much production) and then I put out some borage and bee balm seeds. I don't even know if they'll take. I've kind of lost the desire to plant for now, but in a month or so I'll start seeds for autumn crops. I might experiment with this site to plan the winter garden.

The tomatoes and tomatillos are huge. There are so many flowers on the tomatillos but I have yet to see any fruit. I'm concerned about flower drop. How long are these flowers supposed to last? Maybe I should fertilize. The tomatoes are beginning to put off lots of fruit. I'm so excited to taste some of these varieties, especially the Cherokee Purple and Black Zebra. I'm hungry, too.