bits and bobs: A random assortment of things; small remaining pieces and things
The Girl snapped this photo of me the other night as I went out to lock up the chickens and fill the chicken feeder. It was 85 degrees outside but it felt more like 95 degrees because the humidity was at 99%. Window A/C units are looking more attractive every day.
So far the skeeters haven’t been able to figure out how to bite through my full length puffy coat or the knit cap, so for now, this is how I am protecting myself from the little blood suckers. New England, it’s pretty RAD this time of year, don’t you think?
Everyone we’ve talked to over the past few weeks has said this summer has been off the charts when it comes to heat and humidity. But I’m not buying it. I think they’re all lying. If it’s like this next summer, I may consider moving to Antarctica. No ticks, no black flies, no creepy hissing bugs trying to get in my house 24/7. At this point I would gladly trade a few polar bears for bugs.
True, I’d need to build some sort of massive snow powered greenhouse so I could garden…. but hey, I’m willing to give anything a try at this point.
This is a picture of the wasp hornet’s nest I was pulling weeds DIRECTLY under yesterday. I didn’t even notice it until I heard a buzzing sound over my head and looked up to swat at whatever it was away. THANK GOODNESS I saw the nest just in time before my hand hit it.
My eyes were nearly popping out my head as I slowly moved crawled away and skedaddled for the house. It’s times like these, I am VERY grateful for the traditional 50’s style husband and wife rolls the HH and I play in our marriage. Because seriously, with my history of being allergic to bees stings do you really think I’d be the one to go outside armed with two cans of wasp spray and try to shoot that baby full of juice? Ummmm No.
The HH estimated it to be about 12″-18″ in length. A W E S O M E. AHHHHHH SOOOOOOME.
Speaking of juice…. The Girl and I passed by this sign on the street the other day and I was like…. “Exactly what percentage of the population do you think would buy a cantaloupe and fennel smoothie?”
“Ummm, zero.”
Seriously. Would YOU pay good money for a cantaloupe and fennel smoothie? I need to know.
We also spotted this garden to garbage bin on the sidewalk. In theory, I think this is great. The cost to have your food scraps picked up is $15 a month {the company picks up your scraps once a week and takes it to a local farm to compost them}.
But it does make me wonder:
- How many people actually stick with it after they realize the compost bin is going to stink when the temps are above freezing {which is like what…. 7-8 months out of the year?}. Yes, you would keep the bin outside, but if you live in close quarters in the city, if someone knocks it over, it’s not going to smell good. You do get a clean bucket every week, so that part is nice.
- What about critters?
- Does the cost of producing the plastic bins, the gasoline to drive the collection trucks, the price of buying/insuring/maintaining the vehicles, a warehouse facility, money to pay workers, water used to clean bins, time and money spent at the farms to turn the scraps into compost really cost effective? Or is this more of a feel good program?
Do YOU participate in a program like this? I’d love to know your thoughts. Even if you don’t have this available in your area, would you be willing to pay $15 a month just for someone to pick up your FOOD scraps?
And last but not least…. The chicken run. It has a door! And a roof! And is that a roll of wire I see on the ground? Could today be the day the chicken run {the wire portion anyway} gets finished? Oh my stars…. I sure hope so. Shingles I can wait for, but man oh man it would sure be nice to know the girls have a protected space and we don’t have to worry about the hawks anymore.
Have a wonderful Thursday everyone,
~Mavis
Mim says
Oh Mavis, you are having a tough run right now, aren’t you? I’m sorry. All i can say is that Fall will be here soon and with it an end to mosquitos and black flies. (Really, from everyone I talk to who has been in Maine this summer, it sounds totally abnormal — like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie.) Come visit us inland! While we’ve got the same godawful heat in VT this summer, the bugs are relatively nonexistent.
That would appear to me to be a hornet’s nest. Nasty! Your HH is very brave if he tackled it; it’s the one thing I would call a professional exterminator for.
Glad the chickens will soon be under wraps. Can’t wait for the picture of your first egg!
Melinda says
The size of that wire is scaring me. I’m guessing you’ll be locking them up at night for protection, but that looks like 2×4 inch wire that anything can get through. Here in the South we’ve got too many things that can get through that, so my chicken coop is 4 layers thick… chainlink panels covered in chicken wire, covered in 1/4 inch hardwire mesh halfway up and across the ground, covered in bird netting across the top and sides.
Your birds are beautiful, and I love their fluffy butts. I have 4 Easter Eggers that are currently trying to molt and starting to look bald, but they are still laying green eggs. I’m waiting to go out to no eggs and naked birds soon.
Karin Carson says
The wire seems very large to me as well , we did 1/2”x1/2” for our coop runs as if a weasel can get there nose in they can get in same with rats and we dug it into the ground by 6” as well.
Ellen C. says
Yes, the wire should be backed up with hardware cloth at least 1/2″ X 1/2″. The things that hunt chickens can hunt in the day time and particularly at dusk. A racoon can easily reach in as the enclosure exists now as well as allow weasels in. They both do horrible things to chickens. I’m pretty sure HH is at his end with this chicken coop business but just a bit more effort and expense will prevent an awful situation. Rats will also be excluded with 1/2″ x 1/2″. Mice can always get in. I hate to see you learn the hard way. It can be devastating.
Mavis Butterfield says
Yes, the ladies will be locked up every night in their coop. 🙂 I am convinced a few of them are laying eggs already but I guess we won’t know for sure until we can contain them.
Deloris says
Hubby says that is a hornet’s nest. He said to tell you that you were very lucky, these are way worse than wasps. We have chickens also and use to let them run loose in the daytime. After losing several to hawks and coyotes we have had to confine them all the time. I really hate it but I figure the chickens would rather be alive than running free with death imminent at any time. Love your blog.
Mavis Butterfield says
Just googled hornets nest and he’s right!!!! Geez, I was lucky.
Nancy says
If you are considering window air conditioners, you should look at heat pumps. They are not the most attractive devices to install in your house, but neither is a window air conditioner. They provide heat and air conditioning and are very efficient. You wouldn’t need propane if you had a heat pump. There are rebates and incentives available.
Bev says
Another option – geothermal heating and cooling.
Lunch Lady says
I love the idea of ‘garbage to garden’ I work in a high school kitchen and all of our 35 schools in the district went green last year. We have special bins that the back kitchen waste is collected 2X’s a week. No critters, no smell because we have special bags that decompose along with the kitchen waste. We also recycle all plastic bags that get made into other things, cardboard, metal, Styrofoam and plastic. But, of course I live in Oregon, I think we are the exception not the rule when it comes to recycling.
Kara says
That’s so awesome! Go Oregon!
Diane Murphy says
Lunch Lady,
I live in Oregon too and am wondering how I can learn more about your system and where to buy the special bags.
Thank you for any information,
Diane
Sandy says
I was thinking the same thing…doesn’t everyone recycle their food scraps in with the yard waste? But, Oregon. I forget not everybody lives here. 🙂
Cecile H says
Good Morning Mavis! In the town my daughter lives in the compost is picked up at the same time the garbage and recycling is. It has it’s own bin and it goes to the city compost site where people can go pick up a load of compost for their beds/gardens and the city uses it to fortify their gardens. She lives in a huge city with numerous skyscrapers, the tenants usually keep their bins on their balconies and dump them into the building’s compost container for the city pick up. House owners have their own buckets and pick ups! In rural areas I think it’s silly to have a pick up when if done properly there is no smell to the composting pile of scraps! Maybe better education for home owners on how to create their own is a more cost effective way to reduce garbage!
Lea says
We live in the suburbia of a big city and this is what we have too. No smell, though we have as separate compost bin next to our small veggie plot for our non-weed scraps of yard waste and most of the food waste too. It just needs to be watered and turned regularly (couple times a week and make sure you don’t have anything you shouldn’t in there too) and it doesn’t smell.
Lea
Karin Carson says
The scraps pick up I think is great,
1- gets rid of the compostable things
2- keeps from land fill
3- end product will be useful and repurposed
4- provides employment
I live in a rural area and we had at our dump a bin you bought a key for and it was a giant composter was the size of 2 dumpsters, it was locked and bear safe then you could get the finished product when you needed it .
Mavis , I too am allergic to Wasp/Bees we use the bag Wasp traps with attractant in them works great and we also put out fly ones – those smell like death that’s what attracts the flies But I put away from our house and they catch 1000’s of them and totally worth it, they are clear heavy duty bags with yellow writing and a yellow hanger, just toss in the bin when done ,the dreaded Stink,Bug season is starting have yet to find or diy a successful trap for those horrid things .
Hope your feeling better and recovering from your poison ivy .
Fifitr says
Hi Mavis, I would die in temperatures like that day after day – I like a cooler climate. Being in the UK probably explains why composting food scraps doesn’t seem that odd to me. I first did it in London around 1995 when the local authority gave everyone a bin and collected the results once a week. Everyone was keen at first but by the middle of the third summer only around 3 of us on my street were still putting them out; as you noted quite smelly and with terraced houses you had to carry it through your house to set it out to be collected. Currently we compost everything in the garden – four hoppers right at the bottom take everything from branches to egg shells, but I know some districts have bins where you can put all your green waste from the garden and food, which goes to central composting plants, and then is offered free back to anyone who cares to pick it up and use it. Some local authorities charge a small fee for that (nowhere near the equivalent of $15 a month) and some do it for nothing to promote recycling. I’m not sure how much difference it makes in terms of the costs of collection and processing, but it seems to me to make sense to do something with it that’s beneficial to the food chain, rather than digging more landfill sites and burying it.
Anita says
That’s a nice-looking chicken run, but I agree that the wire is too big. He should be using hardware cloth to keep your girls safe. Just my 2 cents. 🙂
Ms. Sandie says
Please do not give up on New England. This was a horrible summer for the big H and H (aka heat/humidity
I also wanted to add my summer squash plants did not give me the bumper crops I was hoping for either.
Kathryn says
We use a pickup service for compost. We do call it the stinky bucket but the smell only lingers for a few seconds after you open it to put more scraps in. The lid, as long as used correctly, keeps most of the smell out. They pick up once a week so nothing gets TOO smelly. We don’t even get a new bucket every week, we pay extra for bucket washing which I think gets us a clean bucket once a month. No problems with it spilling if knocked over but I have had someone steal the empty bucket twice after it was picked up but before I got home from work. Jokes on them, though, I can’t imagine why you’d want an empty bucket that still smells like food waste!
Margo Miller says
Give away compostables?… we have 3 bins on our property and I use it yearly for my raised garden beds. I had a neighbor who used to collect their compostables and give them to me…..for free!
Katelyn says
Vermont is about to have mandatory composting – you can read more about it at the link below. I would absolutely pay for mine to be picked up anyway, as I live in a condo and can’t compost on my own. The amount of greenhouse gasses that are produced by food waste in landfills in staggering. I know you’re also passionate about not wasting food – avoiding waste in the first place and properly composting scraps definitely go hand in hand.
There’s a lot more information about the impact of large scale composting (vs landfill) here at this page from our solid waste district: https://cswd.net/about-cswd/universal-recycling-law-act-148/
Sue says
Hurrah for Vermont!!!!!!
Maxine says
I live near DC and in 20+ years this has been the worst year. At first August was the worst – super hot and humid. Then it seemed to come earlier and July was bad. This year it started in May and we’re into September (although today may be the last gasp ). But we’ve had so much rain that with the heat we have had humidity like we’ve never seen. I’m outdoors a lot, but for much shorter periods. And then the bugs? I seem fine early but after 3pm I seem to be their dinner. The garden seemed to hibernate but has kicked into gear these last couple weeks. The weeds were in overdrive the whole time though and only just starting to slow down.
I’ve been thinking moving north, maybe to hometown, where growing up I used to pray for an 80’ day so it’d feel like summer but sometimes now they’re hotter than we are (but less humidity). Grow where you’re transplanted! Lol
Tammy says
I have read that in some places, the food waste compost allows for meat bones and fat. Those are both things you can’t put in your home compost bin. We lived in a city in MI that didn’t allow composting but we did anyhow. 😉 And now we have a nice size three-bin compost bin that my husband made. I wouldn’t want to pay $15 a month when we are composting for free!
Julie P says
We compost at home all of our peelings, raw food scraps, tea bags, coffee grounds from indoors and small garden waste such as lawn trimmings and small prunings etc but for the larger prunings but not bigger than at 2” and all other garden waste, flowers even weeds we have a large brown wheeled bin which is collected fortnightly. It goes to our local council, they make compost which they then sell on. It’s excellent stuff and because of the heat generated by their enormous process there are no problems with seed generation or bacteria or pathogens surviving! It costs £44 a year. They also separately collect food scraps, cooked or otherwise, for free and these get turned into energy or fertiliser. It’s a good system!
Lolly says
It’s hot as blue blazes, and there you are….puffy, long, winter coat and a winter hat! As we say in the south, bless your heart! Sorry about the mosquitos!
Heather says
Don’t know about the fennel, but I had cantaloupe water the other day. It was good. I’d make it at home. Love cantaloupe Italian gelato.
Carrie Council says
Gag! Cantaloupe is my least favorite fruit (so slimy!) and fennel is my least favorite herb.
I have two wasps nests that I am waiting on removing once the wasps are gone. One is in my front porch light and the other is in between a storm window and the window. I was worried one of us would get stung by the ones on the porch but luckily we haven’t. The wasps have been patrolling the garden looking for worms so I like to let them be. Too bad they don’t eat squash bugs – I only harvested two squash all summer and had 12 plants!
Marybeth says
I’m in NY and this weather is crazy. It is 95 degrees out and so humid. Hello, looking for fall weather here! I cannot pick apples and pumpkins in this weather.
Teri says
Hope you can find something to help with your poison ivy blisters. I didn’t recognise you without your glasses – What is on your face?
Mavis Butterfield says
The Girl loves face masks and put one on me. 🙂
Kim says
Poison ivy rash is WRETCHED!!!!! I am so sorry you are suffering with this. It is truly miserable!
Betsy in MN says
We have had a couple of those hornet’s nest on our farm. Honestly did not know they were there until the leaves came off the trees. They are quite amazing nests. The hornets do not overwinter in the nests. I took one down and gave to the local high school’s biology teacher for her classroom. The hornets loved the apples on the Hazen tree. I did not really like the apples, they were a softer flesh. Only good for sauce. The hornets ate the flesh and left the skin. The tree was full of deflated apples! The tree is gone and has been replaced by a Honeycrisp.
Terri says
Seattle started the recycling trend in the 70’s. B4 that I would go around to family members who saved their glass waste for me. My husband and I were both students then and although my motivation was saving the planet, the added bonus was the $ they paid for our “garbage”. My kids grew up knowing to recycle. B4 the city came up with public area recycle bins – I was so proud of our kids who would be seen holding on to their recyclables wandering around looking for a recycle bin. They could not conceive of throwing it in the garbage. Now yard and kitchen waste is collected for free, then processed into fantastic garden soil and sold back to us.
Sarah says
We have a compost pick up as well! They pick up every other week, and it is fabulous! I’m surprised you didn’t have this service as an option when you lived in Gig Harbor. I live in Issaquah and have been using it for over 6 years and I couldn’t imagine it any other way.
It surprisingly never smells, and I’ve never had any wild animal get into it or even try.
Barbara N Gantt says
My town has weekly compost pickup and it is free. We have special containers. The smell isnt horrible if you add in some paper and green plants. I have a compost bin but use the towns for kitty liter and meat scraps. Meat scraps in a home compost bin draws rats and mice.
This has been an abnormal summer for heat. Next year should be cooler.
Brianna says
I have a huge hornet nest in my kids sandbox. They have 2 holes they go in and out of. I have called all 3 pest exterminators in our area and 1 won’t do it and the other 2 are too busy to call me back despite me calling and leaving messages several times. I put a hose down it, cranked on the water, and flooded it for 2 hours while a huge black cloud of wasps hovered above the sandbox. I have unloaded 4 cans of wasp/hornet spray into the openings, but yet it still thrives and is growing as they have a huge mound in the sandbox now. I am just waiting for it to freeze and I will either dig it out or burn it out with a torch. Nobody has gotten stung yet, but I have a special bee suit I use. I just cannot seem to kill the queen as it as it is subterranean. They are mean, if I step on one and injure it they start coming out in swarm and are relentless. I have thought about getting gopher poison sticks and placing them in the holes, but I’m not sure it would work on them.
As per the previous comment about the apple tree, I do have a crabapple tree nearby and I haven’t thought about that being an attractant to them as my apples seem well. I thought it was the brightly colored Tonka trucks in the sandbox.
Bobbie says
We had a huge problem with multiple Subterranean hornets nest in our backyard. We tried everything, drowning them out, sprays, pesticides in the grass, even multiple exterminators, Etc. Ultimately what we did is we poured gasoline down the holes and lit it on fire- and that was the only thing that would kill them all! Have not had a problem since, although I hated so badly to dump gas in our yard 🙁 a year later everything is back and driving though, and my kids can play outside without me worrying to death. All the time that we spent out there trying to get rid of the nests my husband was probably stung the total of 40 times over the course of two weeks- me just four times thankfully! They are no joke!
charwelsh says
Bald face hornets are the worst. They will chase you and I can’t run fast enough
Beth says
Hi Mavis- I didn’t read through all your posts but try a baking soda paste on your poison ivy leave it until it dries then rinse and repeat this really helped my hubby when he got it on his face and I was nervous to put meds so close to his eyes. All my best!
Cass says
I would like to say that the wire your husband is putting up is perfect for deer fencing, but will NOT keep the chickens safe for even one second. Raccoons will reach through chicken wire and pull the chicken’s head out and bite it off. That is one of the reasons why people are saying welded wire or hardware cloth (same thing, different names) with less than 1 inch squares. (At least for the bottom 4 feet.) Wild birds will fly through the wire you have and they are vectors for Avian bird flu. Squirrels, rats, mice, minks, weasels and small possums will be able to fit through the wire and threaten your chickens and their food. (the food will attract them, the eggs will keep them coming back.)
Renay Bennett says
RE: hornets nest. I was working in the yard and stood up, turned around and BAM! Hornets nest 2 feet from my face. I froze, and started to back away and then saw the side of it was gone, so knew they were gone, too. Scared the bejeebers out of me as I have been stung by one of those and my leg swelled up like a pumpkin. Had a family Labor Day party and showed my little grandnieces and grandnephews the whole thing. I told them how they make it, using their saliva and leaves and stems, etc. They wanted to touch it, so we pulled some down and were checking it out. One smelled it and asked what it smelled like. I said, bee spit! HA!!!
Karin says
I think I spot the reason your having so much trouble with the heat…. Your supposed to wear shorts and tank tops when it’s 85 degrees. lol. I know your trying to keep bugs off but there has to be a better way! I live in Florida so I’ve learned to accept the bugs. A few mosquito bites are better than heat stroke!