Devonviolet Acres

Baymule said:
Cool pictures! I can't help but think that a Cajun would have grabbed that turtle and had turtle soup! LOL LOL
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:lol: :gig :lol:

Back in his youth, DH caught snapping turtles, and roasted them. He said it was way too much work butchering them. So he wasn't interested in taking this leatherback turtle, and butchering it for turtle soup. Although, he said that was the biggest leatherback turtle he's ever seen. So, it might have been easier to Butcher, and we might have gotten more meat, then from a snapping turtle. :hu
 
We also have a buff Brahma hen, who got Broody about a week or so ago. When I moved the Marans hen to the barn, I put six chicken eggs under the Buff Brahma. I figure if she hatches them out, I'll just sell them on Craigslist for a few dollars each.

That same night, we caught all of the Whiting's true blue chickens and rooster, and put them in the corner run, with the hoopster that DH made a couple years ago. We plan to just collect and eat the eggs for 2 weeks, and then start collecting eggs to hatch. Hopefully, we will have another Broody hen. Or, we can put them under the Marans if she still broody.
 
I've got 2 broodies. Angel is one of the 2015's (White Rock), Betty is a year old Welsummer. I'm breaking Betty but letting Angel park on her fake eggs and every evening taking the eggs that other girls laid in the nest. Some of them just HAVE to lay in the left side of the 4' community box and Angel is one of them so she's commandeered that spot. If Angel sticks with it a few more days I'm going to order some chicks for her to "hatch". I've lost 3 of the 6 'replacements' I got last spring and the 7 year old girls aren't getting any younger! In fact only Persephone (EE) lays regularly. Anais (Faverolles) has been laying for about a week. If she follows her pattern of the past, she'll be in the broody buster pretty soon. Seems she only lays right before she decides to go broody. When she was younger she'd go broody at least 3 times a year.
 
DV you might need to prune the apple trees to get more blossoms and fruit. Apples do better with more "air and light" into the center of the tree. Also has to do with opening up the tree for airflow and to keep down fungus... I am no big expert but have read alot about it and talked to some people over the years about it. For when I have my own.... Also need to be careful of the branches you keep for the angle they come off the tree and prune out any "water sucker" type growing branches.
BUT congrats of the first of hopefully some very productive years ahead.
 
farmerjan said:
DV you might need to prune the apple trees to get more blossoms and fruit. Apples do better with more "air and light" into the center of the tree. Also has to do with opening up the tree for airflow and to keep down fungus... I am no big expert but have read alot about it and talked to some people over the years about it. For when I have my own.... Also need to be careful of the branches you keep for the angle they come off the tree and prune out any "water sucker" type growing branches.
BUT congrats of the first of hopefully some very productive years ahead.
Click to expand...
Thanks Jan. I didn’t prune last Fall, and have been kicking myself, for not doing so. I need to do some research on how to prune fruit trees, and this coming Fall, I will be cleaning out the interior of both apple trees, and am thinking I will be topping off the apple, peach and apricot trees, so it will be easier to pick the fruit.

Years ago, when I lived in California, my ex- and I rented an older house with an ancient apricot tree. It gave me some AMAZING apricots!!! When we planted our apricot tree, I could almost taste the apricots from California. :drool The last summer we were in that house, the tree was so full of fruit, a huge branch snapped (with a huge CRACK sound), and fell to the ground.

We have now had our apricot tree for three years, and I think it was 2 or 3 years old, when we bought it, and no apricots. This year, for the first time, we got some flowers, and I just found six apricots, on the tree. :celebrate However, the leaves on the tree are getting chewed up by something, and the fruit (about the size of a cherry right now) has brown spots on it. So, I am not too hopeful, at this point.

I did look online, and learned that even though apricot trees are not “supposed” to need another tree, for cross pollination, if you plant another tree nearby, it could help with setting of fruit. So, I recently stopped at a nursery, on our way home from Tyler, and bought a 3 year old tree. I plan to plant it about 15 feet from our current tree. So, hopefully next year things should improve. Time will tell . .. . :fl
 
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