Topic: garden

My little horror story can't compete with the gruesomeness of a horror film. But it has its own charm because it comes from my real life. It happened last evening. 

Until this morning, I have lost four out of five chicks. I wanted to keep the last chick. So, I started to prepare a cage that would be secured on all sides. While I was working on it this morning, I heard a beeping noise in the stable. I looked and saw the chick sitting on the perch and beeping. I thought it would come. The mother was already outside and seemed calm and wasn't worried. So I went back to the cage and continued working on it. After a while I heard another beeping sound, now it sounded desperate. I looked again - the chick was gone! I couldn't find it outside either. My explanation: The cat had sneaked into the stable in the morning. The other chickens were either already outside or they ran away out of fear of the cat. The mother probably also had less of a protective instinct and saw already the chick as independent. And finally the cat snapped... Now all the chicks are dead. I'm experiencing this for the first time. In the past I have lost a few chicks to a fox, but never to a cat. I take it as a warning for next year.

Watch video on youtube:

Beauti and Dödi

Beauti and Dödi, now without chicks. I had figs in my hand and Beauty saw it...

Beauti is higher in the chicken rank than Dödi. As long as Dödi had chicks, Beauti often chased Dödi away at feeding time. After all the chicks were dead, Dödi and Beauti stood silently head to head for about a minute. The scene touched me, it reminded me of human grief after losing a family member.

2 days ago I made this last video of Dödi's 4 chicks. Meanwhile, we have given them names: Stephy, Sparky, Aimjie and Meeni. This morning, however, I heard a frantic peep from a chick in the same place as shown at the beginning of the video. I ran and looked and saw a black cat running away with a black chick in its mouth. I ran after it - but the cat was faster.
P.S. 3 days later 2 more chicks disappeared! Now there are only one chick from Dödi and one chick from Beauty. Fortunately they cannot go through the fence anymore, because they are too big for that. And if they are closer to the other chickens, the cat will not catch them, I hope.

Watch video on youtube:

4 chicks of Dödi

So sweet...

We have been cultivating a few watermelons in summer for 3 years, this summer only 3 plants that self-seeded with the mulch because of the lack of water. But there are 4 fruits on the plants - and they are very tasty! In the photo you can see the second watermelon. The seeds are unusually large because it is an old variety. It comes from an old farmer, is well adapted to our climate and always produces very tasty fruit.

Dödi, our smallest hen hatched 4 chicks 4 days ago. In Germany we call someone "Dödi" who is slow to understand and move. For example, Dödi is often the last to arrive at feeding time. "She waddles on her stomach," Murielle once said, also because Dödi has such short legs. Nevertheless, she is doing well and taking good care of her 4 chicks now!

Watch video on youtube:

4 chicks at feeding

A guest brought us lots of courgettes that he got as a gift from a farmer - so many that not even the chickens could eat them all. We mulched a young Longan tree with them. New plants grew from the seeds and gave us the fruits in the photo. (And on the left the moon is shining...) The plants then got a fungal disease, with horsetail tea they would probably have lived longer.

Blackberries grow quickly when there is water and die quickly when it is dry... We have cut a lot of blackberry vines. They have to go, I don't like them as mulch because I walk barefoot. Burning is also out of the question, it is forbidden here from the beginning of May. So I bury them. Here I dig a big hole into which I stomp them later, cut into small pieces. A lot of work, but it is also an excellent preparation for planting a fast-growing tree later...

When I worked on the Veggie-finca, I saw sometines an old spanish couple working on the land next door. They told me that they would like to give up their finca. My friend negociated with them, and we came to an agreement ... One of the first trees I planted, was a Sapote Blanco tree. It gave us in spring and early summer 2022 the first fruits. Murielle and I are thanksful for that - and unfortunattely sometimes the chickens too. See About my land

I lived on the land of a friend, who was good in speaking spanish and negociating with the farmers. He heloed me to get this finca. Before there was conventional cultivated eggplants, pepper, onions and strawberries. I weeded there for a few months by hand all the wild plants, because of an agreement with the previous landlord: I weeded by hand, and he didn't use herbicides (like "Atila" that contains a lot of glyphosate). The earth was covered with black plastic sheeting, but many wild plants came through.

View over the Veggie-finca, Jan 2023