I have lots of thoughts on livestock intelligence. I had one cow who was plenty smart. Sheep are smart for being sheep. One sheep leads them all and that can be over a cliff. I think I have told my chicken story before. They can't see in the dark so all go to roost before then. I don't have electricity in my barn so I went to lock up late and one chicken was still 'up'. She followed me all over, clucking and cackling like she was reading a phone book. She never shut up. I finally leaned down and scolded her, What Do You WANT?! She stopped, looked me in the eye, turned and ran down the stall fronts. Ran back to me, Ran down the stall fronts, Ran back to me... I followed her around the corner. A horse had kicked the mounting block away from the wall. This chicken had come from an Amish place so her wings were clipped and she could not fly to get up on a stall wall to roost with the rest of the girls. So, I had put a mounting block up against the wall so she could jump up to a cross beam to get as high as she was comfortable. Lassie could not have communicated better to get someone out of the well. I don't care for goats. But I really like my chickies.
It is already starting to be a lot cooler and feeling like fall around here in Alabama. I am getting ready to start dismantling some of the garden that we aren’t using now, like the little tee-pees for the climbing cucumbers, which have all died. The tomatoes have gone crazy, growing all over; but with the really hot summer, they just grew lots of branches and leaves and not that many tomatoes, although we are still getting a few each day. The watermelon plant spread everywhere ! However, each time it got baby melons, they get about the size of a walnut, and then they vanish; so I think that something must eat them once they are that size. So, today, I took a picture of it, and then cut it down and put it in the compost pile, since there is no way we are going to get a watermelon to grow at this time of year, even if it survived whatever eats the baby melons.
Do you have gopher tortoises @Yvonne Smith? They used to murder my watermelons but they usually waited until they were almost mature.
I haven't gotten any watermellons this year. Never thought about someone harvesting them already. One year I planted canteloupes. When they started looking ripe, I bent down to pick one up. It had been hollowed from underneath! They all were!
What was the culprit, @Mary Stetler. We put a "holy" flat under the fruit as they form to keep them off the ground.
I am thinking voles. They were numerous that year. This year I have not seen any. My barn cat doesn't like to eat everything he catches, that is how I know. But Chipmunks!...and mice. Mostly they like cleaning up after the chickens.
We have had a bad vole year this year. They have destroyed all my garlic crop and many of our winter squashes and pumpkins.
We had a wonderful old barn cat. She died last year at 21 years old (I think). She had lived her entire life outside in Alaska, but slept in the heated garage for the last year or so.
Our 'barn' cat sort of picks where he wants to sleep with a few provisions from us. Sadly, strays sometimes take the best places. So, he comes to me to tell me about it and I set him up in the barnhouse, sometimes with a nice fire in the stove. He can't get in or out until critter feeding time. But no uninvited cats can get in. He is litter trained and catches a mouse sometimes.
@Dwight Ward I don't know if you followed this guy when I recommended him to you, but here is a question and answer session mostly about gardening in Maryland. It will apply to others as well, but Dwight has some interesting questions and seems to be a relatively new gardener.
Oh my! I don't know where to put this---under gardening or weather. We got big time rain and wind yesterday; maybe 4 inches. Blew the tomato cages over and ripped some of the plants right out of the ground. May have to eat fried green tomatoes for a few days for dinner. No harvesting today. Unless its apples. A lot of downed apples and since I picked a lot already, don't know if I can dry them all before they go bad. At least the deer will be happy. They look so funny trying to eat apples since they can't bite them into pieces first. They look like someone with a BIG chaw of tobaccy. Maybe should have put this under critters
I just saw this post,we have 10 biddies behind us here in living room as I type, raised them for over 20 years so need any help let us know.
I bought a manual but I'll be checking in with you, Marie. There's book smart and there's people smart.