The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[HairOfTheDog]

Good to know! SO all four of 2J's birds will lay in that one box probably? - I know a lot of chickens are not good parents. My ex-boyfriend whose mom had all the chickens found unattended eggs all over un-cared for in inadequate nests.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

I've been told that if you lock up chicken in a coop for 2 wks, or if the boxes are where they grew up, they will always go back there to lay. I just got these hens trained to lay in this box, we built an enclosed coop just a short time ago. I locked them up for about 1 wk. I couldn't keep them locked up longer, I had one rooster that seemed very depressed, so I turned them loose. Before that my hens had made a next in a bale of hay I had in my horse trailer. I swear they stood in line to get in there, (I only had 6), If these chicks I have hatched (30, probably at least 1/2 hens) make it to maturity, I was wondering where they would lay. They will be raised in the coop. But with these and the ones that 2J's friend and 2J will hatch, I will have a lot of hens. Might get interesting. They are so funny when they have an egg to lay and no where to lay it they do alot of fussing:) and pacing around at the site they want to lay it. Chickens are fun.

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

when they have an egg to lay and no where to lay it they do alot of fussing:)

I can imagine! :~D

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Since the rain passed they are looking better. They haven't stood up, but the leaves have unrolled. Do you plant them for looks, like for a flower garden, or for a crop? Mine are for looks:) in a flower garden, when I planted them I did not know (read) that they weould get 10ft. tall.

Becky

[Overtaxed]

For looks mostly....the birds like them when they can get 'em before the squirrels do.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

LOL,, thinking...this past winter when I wasn't using the horse trailer and the chickens were, it was funny. I use a cinder block as a step into the tack compartment where the bale of hay was that the hens were using to lay eggs on. About 11:00 in the morning, there would be a hen on the nest, a hen standing on the cinder block clucking, and 2 other pacing back and forth on the ground behind her, making noise. I guess they were all needing to lay NOW.

I used the trailer a few times that winter. I always wondered how they acted when it was gone. Or where they laid the eggs or if they even did. I never found them. When I finally kept the door shut to the tack compartment, there was a month or so I did not find the eggs, Not until I locked them in the coop for a while.

Becky

[HairOfTheDog]

I used the trailer a few times that winter. I always wondered how they acted when it was gone.

They sat with their little legs crossed and pained looks on their faces!

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

My garden is up next to the house inside a picket fence. I planted the sunflowers along the outside at first but moved them to a coner inside today. I planted them for looks and for birds, maybe inside the fence the squirrels won't come in. This past winter, squirrels were always eating out of my bird feeds. One time they were empty for about a 36 hr period because I was out of feed. When I finally got some feed and went out to fill the feeds the damn squirrels had actuall ate 2 of the 3 plastic bowels off the feeds. I was so mad I moved the feeders where the squirrels couldn't reach them. It was comical and sad to watch them after that.

Becky

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

ROFLOL

Becky

[Overtaxed]

I got so aggravated by squirrels robbing bird feeders that I don't have feeders anymore...except for the hummingbirds. The squirrels try to get into that too! (See the pic on my profile page.)

[HairOfTheDog]

If I put food outside for wildlife, I just feed whatever wildlife shows up! :~D I am not speciesist.

[Overtaxed]

Planning to get together with ecurbh after the trip to NYC

Don't forget IOTN! He's within mooting distance.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

LOL, that's what I meant. It was funny and sad to watch the desprate attempts they made to get into the feeders:)

BTW, we have a black cat with yellow eyes. Bink. He was the first cat we had that actually became a pet.

Becky

[Overtaxed]

I just leave some "naturalized" areas. I have some wild blackberries. The wildlife critters seem to like the arrangement.

[Overtaxed]

Then there was that one year where a raccoon (I think) drained the feeder every night.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Oh, BTW, I planted some Silvia in my flower garden (this is the first yr. I have had a flower garden) and every morning I have hummingbirds come in to eat from them. It's pretty cool.

Becky

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

I didn't mind the squirrels till they destroyed one of my bird feeders.

Becky

[Overtaxed]

I see them eating from my daylilies once in a while.

[HairOfTheDog]

You bought a cheap feeder!

HA! ;~D

[SuziQ]

Wonder if Sevin dust keeps deer away

Did you see the movie The Rookie? In it, they were having trouble with deer eating their newly seeded baseball field. To keep the deer away, they sprinkled human hair all around the perimeter. The deer didn't come back. Ask a barber or hairstylist if they'll save some of the hair from the floor of their shops! I can't hurt, and it just might help! You could put it all around the areas in which you don't want the deer.