Backyard Chickens & Bees

Woke up this morning at 5:30 am to the alarm clock and hearing the chickens chattering away outside. We got up and looked out (it was still pitch black, of course, so we had a flashlight on) and saw a big, fat raccoon sitting in front of the door to the chicken coop! Tapping on [...]

I think that sometimes it’s OK to be that grumpy old man who yells “get off my lawn!” Particularly when it’s directed at three raccoons that are standing on top of your fish pond, trying desperately to get in for a goldfish feast. I built the grate on top of the pond this past summer [...]

Once again, too much going on and not enough time to write about it. A few recent things that merit some mention include: I rebuilt the water pond after seeing that two of the fish survived the raccoon assaults. The additions made to the pond include a red water lily, several clumps of hortwort, two [...]

Ah, so I got home from work tonight and was changing into shorts in the bedroom. One of the windows overlooks the back raised bed and wine barrel pond. I happened to look out at the pond and, lo!, there were the two shubunkins that I thought had been ravaged by the raccoons this past [...]

I think the title says it all. While I am not vanquished, I will concede that they have won this round. The little buggers even managed to bend the copper stub-out bracket that was holding the fountain in place! It’s not super thick, but still was fairly sturdy. No signs of fish, either, so I [...]

I woke up this morning to find that the water garden was all trashed, the lilies were shredded, the water was murky from the dirt in the lily pots being dumped, the bricks in the bottom and the pots were upturned, and one of the fish (the tri-color shubunkin) was missing. Stupid raccoons. I was [...]