Free, organic pest control.

Have a bug problem? Ants? Grasshoppers? Slugs?

Then get a chicken. Or two, even!

Today I let Molly out again, and she wreaked havoc on the local grasshopper population, as well as eating a few daddy longlegs in the process, which isn't as good. There were a lot less grasshoppers than yesterday, and the surviving ones were the large, flying ones or the huge ones that live in the raspberry patch, crawling and nibbling among and on the tall leaves and stalks.

Now, this pest control is free, but not free of work. You see, Molly couldn't get up to were the grasshoppers were, seeing as they were hopping around at my head height, were the raspberry branches were tallest. After putting her back in, I got out the net, and attempted to catch some of the sneaky, huge, and tasty (to a chicken, at least, I imagine) grasshoppers that were frolicking around and eating the berries and leaves. The first few times I failed, but once I got the hang of it, they were extremely easy to catch. A foolproof way of catching grasshoppers? First, scare them out of their hiding places. I did this by rustling the branches with the net, trying to get any grasshoppers to jump away. Once they flee, watch them as they jump and see where they land. Get closer to them, and, quickly, swoop the net down over the branch the grasshopper is on, but do try to slow before you hit the branch, as to not do more harm than good. Now, since these huge, berry-eating grasshoppers have survived for so long, you'd guess they'd have quick reflexes to insure survival, but in this case, you'll be using their strength against them. Seeing the net coming towards them, the grasshoppers will probably jump up and away. If you were trying to catch them by hand, that trick would have worked, as someone's hand is a lot smaller than a net. But since the bigger the thing, the harder to dodge it, there's a 99.9% chance that the grasshopper will jump right into the net. A bit counterproductive for the grasshopper, but if you want to get rid of plant-eating pests and feed your chickens at the same time, it's pretty damn useful for us humans.

As if the chickens didn't get enough excitement and didn't eat enough insects, the birds were put to work again, this time helping us with out ant problem. There was a huge ant nest underneath some of our paving stones near the back door to the garage and in front of the stairs near the deck. The ants had started to mess around underneath and inside the garage, and the day seemed as good as any to try and take care of the ant problem. The paving stones were dug up and overturned, and the chickens scratched and pecked away at the amazingly huge, sprawling ant nest. I don't even want to think about how weird it must have felt to the chickens eating the bugs. Yeuch.

So, want organic, free, pest control that actually pays you in eggs, that takes only a little bit of work, some grasshopper catching abilities, and minimal food, water and shelter as compensation for your workers?

Get some chickens.

Threatening to flower

Hey people. Singular. =P Anyway, It's been forever since I wrote a proper blog post, or even any TOSoS, so I figure I'd better post something to let everyone know what's happening.

So, updates!

Writing wise, I'm pretty stuck. I'm making some progress on that horse book and other things, but not much really. I've also made no progress what so ever on chapter ten of TOSoS: I've gotten to the part of the plotline that's so vague and full of holes I don't know where to start, with writing or repairing it. I'm starting to get it to work though, and it looks less like thread bare cloth and more like Swiss cheese.

The garden of course, is the cause of this inactivity. So much has been happening, it's hard to keep up with the picking and preserving alone, even with the help of everyone! There's always tomatoes, chamomile and raspberries to pick, and every so often a crop ripens and all of it is harvested at once, like carrots or the lemon balm that was threatening to flower. We've been freezing, jamming and drying like mad people.

And, on top of that, I'm running every day to try and build up more stamina. I don't like the term 'get in shape', so building up stamina it is. It's more true anyway. I'm also trying to animate things, and failing, because the only 2d, free animation software I can find either doesn't work, is too complicated for me to figure out, doesn't work, or isn't free. Yeah.

I just want to animate something. *sob*

Ermm... anyway. It's been busy here. Oh, and today I let Molly (red sex link hen) out to eat grasshoppers. Man, is she good at catching them. She chased and pecked and ate grasshoppers like a pro, and she even got quite a few big ones (though that may have been because there were lots of big ones rather than the fact that she's really good at catching them, but I'd say it was a mixture of both the fact that our side yard is full of the biggest grasshoppers on earth and the fact that she is the fastest and best bug eater of all the flock.). By the end her crop was bulging, and there were a lot less grasshoppers in the tomato and raspberry patches. A good day of insect hunting.

Better get back to work, or in this case, back to watching Bones and putting raspberries on trays to freeze. They're threatening to flower. Well, not really, but, you know, I'm trying to be all metaphorical or whatever the word is here.

The Other Side of Shrae: Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Talli jumped up, wide awake. She could hear yowls, yelps, hisses and snapping sounds from near the water. Jumping up, she looked around. The others weren’t awake yet.

“Get up!” Talli yelled, afraid and worried. “Get your weapons out and those who don’t have them…” She looked around desperately, “Um… um…” She spotted the smoldering coals of last night’s fire, “Get a stick and light it on fire or something!”

“What?” Briar asked, alarmed.

“Fighting sounds, from the beach! Whatever’s out there we have to be ready!”

Everyone was wide awake then, moods a mixture of worried and scared.

Talli took a deep breath, pulled out her machete, and walked out of the entrance to their camp.

Before her the shore was chaos. The terrifying lobster creatures Ben had talked about screeched and hissed, and in the middle of it all was a creature that looked like a smaller version of the Wolfcoon Briar had killed.

“What is going on?!” Briar asked.

“I don’t know!” Talli shouted back.

The Wolfcoon growled and hissed, snapping at the lobster things, which kept clacking their claws, tauntingly. It lunged, grabbing one of the monster’s legs and snapping it with it’s strong jaws.

“It’s small… the poor creature.” Ashelea said, watching the Wolfcoon.

“But… did you…” Dylan spluttered, “But… Look at what it did to that thing’s leg!”

“Look at what those things did to Ben’s arm,” Talli said, pointing to the barely-healed scar on Ben’s forearm, “And that was just a glancing blow, too, I imagine.” She added, and Ben nodded.

“Well… but…” Dylan protested, then changed the subject “Look! Those things are running off! I bet that Wolf thing’ll attack us next. We have to--“

“Oh, stop your worrying” Ashelea inturrupted, annoyed. “Look, I bet this thing is a pup, an orphaned one. And it’s probably the pup of that Wolfcoon you killed. It’s certainly too small to be an adult. And it’s no harm to any of you. Look at it, it’s scared. It’s defending itself, not charging in there to fight for the fun of it.”

Dylan stared suspiciously at the creature, as it backed away from the lobster things which were retreating as well, clacking their claws together and hissing ‘shreeeeiiissssssshhhkkkkkkk’.

“Look, they’re going back into the ocean!” Dylan said, “And that thing’s coming over here, cub or not!” Drawing his weapon, he held it shakily in front of him, frightened.

Talli pushed his weapon down, forcing him to lower it. “Hold on, Ashelea’s right.” Then, thinking, she wondered aloud, “Should we try and help it? It’s our fault it’s an orphan, after all.” And without waiting for the other’s opinion, she slowly walked over to where the creature had been fighting, and where some of the armored legs and ripped off pieces of tail from the fight still lay. Picking up a severed, insect-like leg, she gingerly cracked off the hard, armor-like exoskeleton one piece at a time. Then, with the meat underneath exposed, thoughts buzzing and mind-gears whizzing all the time as she wondered and put things together and created theories, she held it out to the young, fuzzy Wolfcoon cub. It backed away, cowering, ears flat and tail between it’s legs – body language much like a dog, she mused to herself – then, slowly, it grew friendlier, and inched forwards just enough to snap at the food Talli held out to it. Talli smiled, and let it take another cautious bite, darting forwards to take some of the food and then jumping back. After a few minutes, it realized that Talli was less of a threat than it first expected. Talli also realized the young cub was less of a threat, and while the others also inched closer, just like the cub, she knew they were realizing it, too. She didn’t want to nurse this creature back to health, but it felt like it was the right thing to do, to try and help it, since it was they who’d killed it’s mother. Picking up a piece of tail this time, she peeled away the much softer, more flexible exoskeleton on the tail, and offered it the cub. This time it inched even closer, the chunk of food being offered being much shorter than the last. Quickly, it darted forwards, pulling so fiercely on the chunk of meat that Talli lost her grip, and the cub retreated several yards to eat in peace.

“Well, then, okay.” She said, getting up from where she was crouching and backing away a few steps. “I don’t see why you couldn’t feed yourself, but at least you won’t attack us, right?” She muttered.

Walking back to the others, who’d come a bit closer gradually, she stretched, relaxing the cramped muscles in her back and arms.

“See? No danger. And it seems like it’s old enough to eat solid food, even if it can’t figure out how to get to it.” She said, watching Dylan’s expressionless face for any sign of emotion.

“This.” Briar announced suddenly, “Has been a weird day.”

Talli chuckled, “Indeed it has been.”

Fall is in the air.

You can feel it.

The Other Side of Shrae: Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

“Okay... that was kind of gross…” Talli muttered, rinsing her hands in the seawater next to Briar and Becka.

“Well, we’ve got a lot of food now, right?” Briar said, now washing off the usable meat.

Becka nodded, getting up and shaking the water off of her hands.

“Is it possible to salt meat with saltwater?” Talli asked, cluelessly.

“I dunno, probably too weak.” Ashelea said, walking up to them, “Oh, by the way, look what work the others have done on the camp.” She added, motioning behind her.

“Camp?” Talli said, raising an eyebrow and turning around to look at it, “I’d say it’s more of a— Oh, wow.” Dylan, Ashelea, Ben and Robert had been working hard, and they now had a rather substantial barrier between their fire pit, the small cluster of shelters – of which there were more of – and the outside world. They had gathered more driftwood and anything else they could find in the forest, and built a better, taller wall around their… well, it really was a camp now.

“So, how do you like it?” Robert asked cheerfully, joining them.

“It’s great.” Talli said, wiping her wet hands dry on her shirt and admiring their work.

“Yeah” Becka agreed. “Nice work.”

“And what have you guys done here?” Ashelea asked, peering over Talli’s shoulder to watch Briar finish washing the rest of the meat.

“Oh, we’ve only been working hard to make sure everyone can eat like rich people tonight and dine on only the finest Wolfcoon steak.” Becka teased.

That night they had soup, boiling some of the tougher meat in sections of bamboo or whatever else they could use as a pot or a bowl. Yawning, Talli leaned back, warm from the fire and full from their meal. She took a few more pieces of wood and poked them into the blaze before her, watching them catch on fire and crumble and shift. She closed her eyes, smiled, and went over to one of the unoccupied lean-tos, feeling content. Would they ever get back home? How? Would they starve? Be torn limb from limb by these lobster things, or these Wolfcoon things? Would they die of heat or of cold or drown trying to get back to their homeland? But she didn’t dwell on thoughts of death or battle, or of being stuck here forever and ever. Right now was what mattered. And right now she was safe, warm, full… and tired. She closed her eyes, letting her thoughts wander and then disappear altogether as she fell asleep.

Right now was what mattered. And right now she was safe.