New Friends In The Garden

I haven't blogged lately because the only thing I have to talk about are bugs and that gets a bit boring after a while.  After picking a few hundred bean beatle larvae off my beans the other day, I went to visit my sister-in-law.  She told me she had some old chickens she wanted to get rid of before her new chickens were delivered.  After picking all those bugs off my beans I decided a couple of chickens might be the answer I'm looking for.  I asked her if I could take a couple of the girls home and put them in the garden.  I don't care if they ever lay a single egg, as long as they eat the bugs.  Since my garden is fenced, I figured the girls would be safe from our beastly dogs and we have an extra dog crate that we put out there for housing.


My brother-in-law dropped them off Saturday morning and we put them in the garden.  We gave them some water and let them out to get aquainted with the bugs.  So far the dogs seem interested but don't act like they want to jump the fence to kill them.  I'm going to call them Thelma and Louise. 


They especially seem to like the squash plants.  The huge squash plants provide plenty of shade and hiding places for them - and probably a snack or two (yes, I've seen the squash bugs too).

Thelma

Louise




Louise trying to hide in the squash.

Things I've learned about chickens after 3 days:

  1.  Chickens do not eat Mexican Bean Beetle larvae.
  2.  Chickens stink!
  3.  Chickens are, for lack of a better word, chickens.

Thelma is the adventurous, yet predictable, one.  Every evening at the same time she jumps the fence and every evening at the same time we catch her.  Last night she was perched on the handle of the tiller.  Louise is a chicken chicken.  She hides all the time - under the squash plants and in my potato bins.  At least she's easy to find. 

So, that's the story of my new garden friends.  If they don't get to eating some bugs soon, they will no longer be my friends, they will be soup!