Devonviolet Acres

[greybeard]

@greybeard maybe you need sheep!

You answered that for me.

The leaves also flare and burn-totally green-and make a good fire starter.

Fire costs nothing. Herbicides not much more.
The Forest Service does thousands of acres of prescribed burns here every year. That's what they're burning, trying to get rid of--yaupon.

 

[Devonviolet]

I never saw any when I lived in San Angelo, but it's always been here in East Texas. Invasive thru out the Nat'l Forest here and most of East Texas. Wrong time of year right now for the red berries. It will destroy a fenceline, as it pushes the wires up and out as it grows. I've killed most of it off here, but can't spray this particular fence as it is the boundary between me and the national Forest, and lawd help me if I kill one of their precious invasives.
I wish the forest service workers had it all stuck up their backsides.

Deer will browse on it...and cows will too, if there's nothing else for them to eat.
If it grws into or leans over my fence tho, it's fair game and gets the knife.

Thanks for posting that photo, of the yaupon, GB! You are just a wealth of information! I, for one, am glad you are here on BYH!

Now I know what I'm looking for. The one I was thinking of isn't yaupon. For sure it isn't invasive around here. Or, I would have seen a lot of it, and I haven't.

I'm actually thinking, if we have it on our property , I might look into turning the leaves into Yaupon Tea, and selling it at Farmers market, or maybe on Craigs List.

 

[Bruce]

Craig's list might be a good place to put an ad for "stinging nettle wanted". I bet someone would be willing to part with just a little bit.

 

[Devonviolet]

Craig's list might be a good place to put an ad for "stinging nettle wanted". I bet someone would be willing to part with just a little bit.

Actually, I recently found two 1 pound bags of "Dried & Sifted" Stinging Nettle, that I forgot I had ordered. So, I have plenty to last me a while.

 

[greybeard]

I guarantee that there is Yaupon all around Sulphur Springs. I've been there many times, both maternal grandparents and most of my aunts and uncles are buried in Yantis, and I've helped my cousin with his Yantis dairy herd before he too passed away.
If you don't see it on any particular piece of property, it is only because it has been eradicated by the landowners.
Look for it along old run down fence lines.

 

[Devonviolet]

Today has been a busy day for us. After I milked, filtered the milk & cleaned up the kitchen, I went back outside & we started building a pen within a pen, in the chicken yard.

Our ducklings, that were brooded by our Lavender Marans hen, are getting big & are still in the barn.

I've lost track. But I think they are about 5 or 6 weeks old. They need to get out in the chicken yard. All of our runs are being used. So, we decided to temporarily, fence in an area, within the chicken yard.

Here it was this morning, before we started.

We didn't have time to finish it this morning. But, here it is so far. We will finish it in the morning.

The black tub, is a "swim pond" for the little ducklings.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Looks fine to me....I may be doing something similar here soon....depending on how many of these eggs hatch. It should be any day now that they begin hatching and how long the 4 hens continue to set on the remaining eggs after they do. There are still a bunch of eggs in there, but after the last storm came thru they abandoned one of the nests, so I guess that water got to the eggs and cooled them too much to hatch. We have found a few more busted eggs with ducklings in them....these had feathers. There is 1 hen that lays a thin shelled egg and it seems that these that have cracked are from her.

 

[Devonviolet]

We still have Edith, our turkey hen, brooding. She started with seven eggs about a week after the ducklings hatched. One by one eggs started disappearing. Earlier this week, DH was feeding the turkey and found the tail of a 6 foot King stake. He grabbed the head with the reacher, that we use to get hard to reach eggs. About the same time, Edith came running out of the coop, flapping her wings & squawking. She ran up to the snake, stomping on it with her big old feet and pecking its head.

Before DH could grab it again, Edith chased it out of the chicken yard and it slithered under he barn. DH thought it was cool to have the snake around to keep mice & rats under control. He even named it Roy. So, now we have agreed that Roy has to go the next time we see him.

When DH went back into the coop, before Edith got back on the nest, there was only one egg left. If I remember correctly, the one last egg should be hatching any time now.

 

[Baymule]

That stinks about the snake eating poor Edith's eggs. You need Paris. We came in from town Tuesday and I took some things to the kitchen. I looked out the window to see Paris panting and bloody. I ran outside and she perked her ears up. I asked her, "Where is it? Get it!" She then ran to a piece of something and looked back at me, VERY pleased with herself. It was a chunk of a rat snake. There were quite a few pieces of snake lying around, it must have been an epic battle.

Since this is a temporary pen, build a temporary shelter. I made one using a pallet, stapled plastic feed sacks to it and put it on milk crates. The ducks I had loved it.

 

[greybeard]

dead snake=good snake