"Five Apple Farm: Growing It Larrapin"
Geek adventures with honey bees, gardens & more on a Blue Ridge homestead
Grow it and they will come: Monarch butterflies
Wow! These guys can eat! These pictures are from about two weeks ago, when I noticed that there were DOZENS of Monarch butterfly caterpillars on a tropical milkweed out in the veggie garden that had eaten every leaf on the plant. Here’s a video snippet (1 min) of that plant:
So by snipping off the bare branches loaded with baby Monarchs, I relocated them to a milkweed that had plenty of leaves. They crawled off, eating all the way! The lesson here, same as last year: Plant more milkweed! Below are some pics of the relocated caterpillars…
And here is a tiny video (1 min) after the successful relocation:
Postscript to this story: Since the receiving milkweed plant is right beside the front patio, our front porch is now festooned with little leaf-green cocoons dotted with gold. We kept one (which was on a leaf I accidentally plucked) in a jar with a coffee filter over the top, till it emerged and we released the most perfect Monarch into a gorgeous September day.
Fly hard towards Mexico beautiful friends!
Read MoreBuckeyes Play Day in the Big Pen
Are these gals growing up or what? From their hatch date on August 6th they have grown steadily and are starting to look like real pullets!
So on days when we’re home to deep an eye out for hawks (since these gals are the the perfect hawk-bait size right now) they get to romp with the big chickens for the day. After we’ve put the big rooster, Red, outside the pen, that is. Red has to go to a new home soon (or the soup pot…) He was a rooster that arrived as packing material with our guinea chicks. He’s a handsome Americauna, but that’s not what we raise around here now…
Here’s everybody on the chick room doorstep. The love to scratch away the straw and take dust baths already.
These girls are serious hunters already.
The Buckeyes are supposed to be a deep red brown (like a Buckeye nut) and some of these are getting a nice deep color. Others are still pretty light. Eventually, we’ll select for the good color and good egg production.
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin Garden! Things have been so busy with work and life I’ve had no time to post, but will give a monarch butterfly update soon.
(Yikes, I had to re-publish this post till I got the pics right. Usually I use Flickr, but was trying to use Blogger images. Tricky! I didn’t know you had to choose, it seems between pics 400px wide OR 640 pics wide, OR, they don’t show up! Live & Learn…may be going back to Flickr pics…)
Read MorePreview: Chicks Outdoors!
Coming Soon – a report on the first day outside! (Really, I’m just checking how this image looks. I’m torn between uploading directly to Blogger, vs using Flickr… Bloggie techno decisions…) More later today, including video of the first venture outdoors!
Read MoreA Walkaround at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks (Fayetteville)
Isn’t it funny how we don’t spend enough time visiting the really wonderful places in our own cities or regions? Can you say you’ve been to most of the landmarks in your town? If so, I think you have the right idea. I’ve moved away from areas before and realized I’ve never been to the places that the tourists travel hundreds or thousands of miles to see. For example, I lived in Asheville, NC for ten years and never visited the Biltmore Estate, I confess. It does, however, give me a reason to act like a tourist when I go back there to visit friends….
Anyway, I’m breaking that habit of mine now that I’m here in Northwest Arkansas. I want to be familiar with the places that make the place special. So when my Mother in law and Father in law visited the other weekend, we took them to the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks, one of the loveliest spots in Fayetteville. (My other all-time favorites being the Farmer’s Market on the Square on Saturday mornings and the Fayetteville Public Library…. And our realtor must have sensed this because once we saw those two things, we instantly chose Fayetteville over the other cities in the region.)
So join me on a walkaround at the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks in Fayetteville, Arkansas:
Shadow Art on the Great Lawn
The BGO is brand new, less than three years old. It’s an amazing thing seeing a botanical garden begin, take root and grow where there was formerly just a lovely hay field! It’s a series of named and themed gardens that radiate out around the central lawn. The Great Lawn is the site for festivals, concerts and other local happenings. (The whole place is the best spot to have a wedding in the whole region…)
We arrived in late afternoon on a Sunday and nearly had the whole place to ourselves. The angled light was splendid and depth shadows added to the drama.
Artful Horse Apples Near the Event Hall
Now this is a clever use for the fruit from an Osage Orange! This decorative planting is outside the event hall. There must have been a wedding the day before because the tents were still up.
My Favorite Fountain
Since I’m craving more water features here at Larrapin Garden, I gravitated to all the ponds, waterfalls and fountains — and there are many. This one was my favorite. Made a great sound and the light just sparked off every drop.
My Favorite mosaic of all time
The BGO is full of art. This mosaic is at the entrance to one garden — a dragonfly of natural stone with shiny glass accents. The dragonfly is probably four foot long. What a beautiful piece!
What a waterlily!
Like I said, water gardens everywhere. Is that an amazing color or what!
If your veggie garden looks like this, who needs ornamentals?
Of course my favorite stop is the edible garden! Someday, I’d like my veggie garden to look this pretty!
The Corn Sculpture in the Vegetable Garden. How can an artsy-farmer -wanna-be like me not love a six foot mosaic ear of corn?
Black Eyed Susan Vine Among the Yard Long Beans
This picture doesn’t do it justice, but the Black Eyed Susan vines were underplanted with the pole beans (the kind with pods a couple feet long!) and made the whole trellis look beautiful. Note to self: more flowers among the veggies next year!
Cute Chicken Yard or What?
Now this is not your stuffy uptight botanical garden. You can tell because tucked behind the veggie garden is the cutest chicken yard you ever did see. With art –a bamboo star in this case — among the chicks, of course. This is one happy bunch of bantie poultry.
World’s Cutest Chicken Coop?
And what’s not to be happy about when you are a bantie living in a chicken coop that looks like a playhouse?
The Chicken Coop Yard — With Art. I noted they have straw, rye grass and amaranth growing in their yard. Nice! Ok, I want a bamboo star for my chicken yard. At Larrapin, it could be a good obstacle for running chickens to put between themselves and a hawk attack! (We’ve been lucky lately, but every morning the hawks fly around and call and call, reminding us that it’s a wildlife garden, after all…)
New Bridge in the Children’s Garden. This splendid bridge, done up in my favorite blue, appeared since the last time I visited the garden.
Adults Enjoying the Children’s Garden
Caught these folks having fun on their way to the “Eagle’s Nest” a concrete structure that lets you view the garden from on high.
Secret Passage in the Children’s Garden. I loved this mosaic tiny door in the chilcren’s garden, leading to a big field…
Wow! What a place in my own town. Go Fayetteville! Go BGO!
Afterwards, A Stroll by Lake Fayetteville. To finish up our Sunday outing, we walked a brief bit around Lake Fayetteville, which is back to back with the Botanical Gardens, and has 5 miles of walking trail through the forest around the lake. I love my home of three years now.
Thanks for visiting Fayetteville, Arkansas. I’d love to hear about some of the special places in your hometown backyard!
Read MoreBuckeye Chick Update – 1 Month
So, the Buckeye chicks are a month old! In a previous post I described getting the day-old chicks. Now here they are, about five times the size they arrived (at least!) —
The red ones are Buckeys, the black ones are Australorps, both will grow up to be brown egg layers. I picked th Australorps, I confess, because I love a glossy black chicken from a photography/aesthetic point of view. Plus I have an old black hen of unknown origin who is my favorite… The Australorps, I read, are a friendly docile chicken. Someone forgot to tell my batch this as they are a shy, flighty bunch with one striking exception of a little gal who will follow you like a pup. But maybe they are only flighty when compared to my beloved little Buckeyes, who are basically fearless.
The Buckeye is the only U.S. chicken breed developed by a woman. Hattie Metcalf of Ohio developed the breed in the 1800s to be dual purpose (meat/eggs), vigorous free rangers, friendly personality and very cold hardy. While the last part isn’t so critical in Arkansas as in Ohio, the personality (friendly, fearless, hate mice and make unusual sounds!) and free-range foraging traits perked up my interest.
I first read about them on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy “critical” list of varieties of chickens of which there are 500 or fewer birds, or less than five breeding flocks (50 birds) in the U.S. The Buckeye was on their priority list to preserve and the traits were enough for me to say THAT’s the chicken to take on as a Larrapin farm project! (ALBC’s Buckeye page)
Maintaining the genetic heritage of these livestock breeds as we go into the future is a part of sustainable living in my opinion. Our ancestors couldn’t depend factory-grown chickens (can we? should we? I won’t buy the stuff after living here in their chicken raising part of the world and seeing how industrial birds are raised…) so farmers of the past developed breeds that could live in the real world, in specific locales. That is a genetic heritage we don’t want to lose, given the uncertainty of the future…ok, stepping down off the soap box…
So my first group of 12 chicks arrived from Ideal Hatchery out of Texas, all pullets, with their Australorp friends. Of the twelve I’ll pick the best hens to keep and then gradually add to my flock while selecting for egg productions. Washington County Fair, poultry division, here I come!
But first, we had to make a bigger home for these gals because at a month old, they outgrew their 4 x 8′ playpen. We took one bay of the chicken shed and closed it in and set it up as their new playROOM. (Our place came with three open sheds in the three little pastures because the former owner raised emus)
We were taking a break from building the door and front of the shed when I snapped this pic. We’d locked the other chickens out so they wouldn’t get in the way or get too curious about the babies (which might not be safe for 1 month old chicks who are strangers to my old flock…). I love how the old girls are waiting outside the gate like, hey, why are we out here!?
It didn’t take too long to build a sturdy door and front with hardware cloth. Can’t use chicken wire because raccoons are notorious for reaching through and pulling out chickens piece by piece! Yikes. So we have 1/2 inch mesh heavy duty hardware cloth on the front. We also wrapped the back of the shed in it. The old boards are falling apart and until I can replace them, we did a wire overwrap… Here’s our new door with babies happily in their spacious playroom:
They love it! Finally, if you’d like to see these cute one-month olds romp in their new digs on a one minute video snippet, press the “play” arrow below:
For you folks outside the city limits, check out the ALBC’s list of rare heritage livestock in need of conservation. You may find your next barnyard friends and be doing a good thing too.
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin.
Read MoreBefore the Rains Begin
Greetings from Larrapin Garden on the day before the rains start (again). Hurricane Ike’s rains should get up to NW Arkansas on Saturday and we could get soaked. Nothing compared to what may happen down in Texas. We’re supposed to get up to 4 inches each day this weekend, compared with potential 15″ of rain in Houston. Geesh, what a rainy year. We’d already had our usual yearly rainfall by June or July this year…
All the rain has had an amazing result on all the greenery and some things are still blooming even as the weather has started to get cool early. Those are scarlet runner beans growing on a fence and a happy bumble bee. The seed packed said “loved by hummingbirds” and that is so true. These are the 2008 favorites of the four hummingbirds that hang out at Larrapin.
Meanwhile, the Monarchs finally arrived after being absent nearly all summer. I think they are not so fond of all this rain.
The last month has been AMAZING for butterflies. We’ve finally got enough nectar plants to have been noted on the butterfly flight paths it seems! Their favorites: Tropical Milkweed (favored over the native perennial I see, but will plant more of both), four butterfly bushes (wow, deadheading will keep them blooming ALL the time), and scarlet runner beans plus assorted flowers. We’ve also got a lot of host trees – oaks, willow, river birch, wild cherry, with more to come such as Paw Paw…
This is a blurry photo, but it’s the first time I’ve seen this type of butterfly here. Will have to look it up. Anyone know the name?
Don’t let this pic fool you. It’s from mid-July I think, when we had enough dry weather to have good tomatoes… The one in my hand is the old fashioned Brandywine, which turns out to be as good as everyone says. The one on the right is Cherokee Purple, which we LOVE but this year’s batch was abysmal between the rain and the first time onslaught of stink bugs on the tomatoes. Will study up on organic control of those buggers next year. They poke the tomatoes just enough to scar them and make them prone to rot. We’ve had a few Ananas Noir (not pictured — but they are soft red and green swirled, both inside and out) and the oddly colored tomato remains the favorite tomato of Larrapin.
So I’ll end this post with a chicken photo since the next post will be a Buckeye update. This unusual chicken is one of the two I picked up as day-old chicks at the hardware store to be companions for the solitary guinea that hatched back in June. The grab-bag chicks are both solid black. One (not pictured) is an Ameraucana,which was confimed when she laid her first blue-green egg! The second black chick has grown up to be quite lovely. Is she a jungle-fowl variety of chicken? Not really sure, will study on that later… Here she is. The white blob in the foreground is the lone guinea chick grown up. And completely convinced she is a chicken. Which is a good thing. It makes her the ONLY guinea who reliably roosts in the chicken house every night. From now on, all my guinea will be raised by chickens!
Thanks for stopping by Larrapin before the rain!
Read MoreThe August Babies! (Baby Chicks…)
New Chicks! This is from my accumulated material from early August that I haven’t had time to post. They arrived on the 8th of August as day old chicks. The good news is that three weeks later, they are all still with us. Only bigger, and now in the gangly teenager stage, so let’s stick with the cute pics for now!
The black ones are Black Australorps. I think a glossy black chicken walking around on green grass is lovely to look at (I feel the same about black cows on a green hillside…but we don’t have that much room!) The yellow ones will grow up to be deep red-brown. They are Buckeyes, a rare heritage breed – and the only American chicken developed by a woman back in the late 1800s, in Ohio as you may have guessed. (And these are my new farm project — more about that later…)
Press the play button to see just how cute these little gals are just walking around in their warm box.
Read MoreA little something hopeful…
I finally finished work for the weekend and wanted to post some pics I’ve saved for the blog, but it’s hard to be lighthearted when so many Gulf Coast folks are away from their homes (again) and don’t know if tomorrow will bring devastation or blessed false alarm. My thoughts and prayers are with all those who had to evacuate.
One September years ago in Yancey County, NC we had sudden and unexpected flooding the night of my birthday. We’d been having dinner with friends in Asheville and were driving the hour back home late at night in the driving rain. About two miles from our mountainside cabin above the South Toe River there were volunteer firemen and flashing lights blocking the country road. Past that point the river had flooded the highway and no one could pass. It was awful: midnight in the pouring rain, unable to get to our home and waiting dogs. I called a nurse friend who I knew worked 2nd shift and would still be up. Sure we could come stay with them. (Ahhh, there’s where real hospitality and friendship are pure grace…) So we spent a restless and distraught night wondering how high the river would be, would the house be ok, were the dogs ok, etc.
It was mid-day the next day when the river went down enough to drive home. I was so stir crazy with worry that I would have hiked the overland mountain route if if meant getting home. And that was just one night, all the while knowing that our house was pretty far up the hill from the river and very unlikely to flood. So I can only imagine what the Gulf Coast/New Orleans folks are going through, again.
Our home stayed safe and dry that time. So many others haven’t been that lucky. When the horror of Hurricane Katrina was going on, I heard a song on NPR that affected me so deeply I tracked down the CD. Singer Eliza Gilkyson wrote “Requiem” after the Asian tsunami. It is one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard — a lament, a prayer. (You can hear the song and/or the interview here.) NPR played the song and the interview after Katrina. I remember tears just flowing down my face when I heard it. I got out the CD played it last night again, thinking of New Orleans — a place that stuck in my heart after just one visit there. I can see how people love it so much they will keep going back…
So here’s another prayer, a story of baby birds in the shed that houses our well pump:
Earlier this summer I knew something was going on in the shed when I saw a wren coming and going through the wide gap under the shed door. She’d flit back and forth, various insects in her beak, then back again. A little investigation revealed loud peeping coming from within the old grass-catcher bag of an old mower.
A couple of weeks later, I opened the shed to find baby birds about to take on their biggest adventure — flight! And in this case, life outside the well-pump shed! One little guy was up on the edge of the bag:
Others had already tumbled out of the nest and were huddled behind the axe….
Yet another had flown up to the window. This one seemed to be saying, “Hey, how does one get out of here!?” This is the pic from outside the shed:
I opened the shed door because mama and papa wren were outside cheeping wildly. One by one they fluttered out into the big world. Till one, the littlest was left:
I watched and waited, worried sick he’d be left behind. Then he fluttered bravely out like a big bird and kind of motored across the yard barely inches off the ground till he found some bushes to land in.
That night I kept thinking about those babies out in the big, sometimes bad world. I wished them safety, safe travel and blessed happy life. Tonight I’m sending out a wish for the same to the people who are suffering tonight: folks along the Gulf Coast, the folks flooded out in India, and to all who need one extra prayer tonight. Godspeed through the night, and the nights to come, for all of you, for all of us.
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