Garden and Chicken updates, Honeysuckle, Surprise Moth

The garden is continuing to bang right along.

I’m realizing that some things I planted too densely – like most of it, actually.  It’s hard for me to remember, when they’re tiny four-inch-pot plants that we’ve raised from seeds, that they will become huge monsters.

The mustard is continuing to provide us with spicy and very purple salads.  The bok choi is bolting; I really should have planted these in November, but I didn’t know that then.  I’m letting it bolt, because the bees love it and I’ll get lots of seed for next year.

The pole beans are getting up their poles in good order.  You can see the colors of the fun fancy ones, in the leaf veins – this is Violet Triumph, and Red Emperor has red veins.

The Kentucky Wonder pole beans that I mistook for bush beans and planted in rows, are starting to show their vining nature and putting out their whips.  I need to figure out some kind of stick solution to get these up in the air, or they’ll start attacking the neighboring plants.

The grape tomatoes have full-sized fruit and should be starting to turn soon.

These Better Boys are about the size of golf balls.  The plants are huge and sturdy; I hope they will bear for a good long season!

The chickens are getting to an awkward stage; they’re no longer peeping balls of fluff, and they’re not yet sleek and full-feathered.  They sound a lot like songbirds.

This is Thing One; I’m training Thing One and Thing Two to be Shoulder Chickens.

Freebird could be a couple of days younger than the rest; she’s still smaller.  And SO CUTE!

Last year, the honeysuckle trickled along, blooming a little at a time most of the summer.  I think that we just missed its big flush in the spring; last spring was earlier than this one, plant-wise.   The blur in the background of this shot, is about thirty feet of vine-smothered fence.  We already ripped out about twenty feet that were in a bad place.

This gives you a little better idea of how MUCH there is of it.  Honeysuckle can be very pushy.  Fortunately, it likes to grow on the creek bank; the embankment is covered in really ugly rip-rap and most things won’t grow there.  It smells amazing in the yard right now.

A couple of days ago, I was standing in the front yard watching Chris work (which he will tell you, is how it always happens… ) and I noticed that the leaves blowing across the sidewalk across the street didn’t look quiet right.  One of them righted itself and flapped a couple of times.  It wasn’t a leaf at all, it was a Polyphemus moth.  I’ve never seen them in quite this shade of pale dried-leaf brown; she’s really lovely.

She’s huge with eggs.  I put her in a cage outside, and a local male hooked up with her the same night.  Now, I’ve got plenty of eggs to start the next generation of little silk-makers!

I love her smoky dark eyes…

and her thick, wooly coat.