Central Midwest Gardening: July 2012-Plants shriveling up already, 4 by Crit

Crit wrote:
LOVE the taj macoop happ. lol I am now in the chicken business. I have 3 pullets that should start laying eggs this month. I eventually want to get up to 12. I have a Cinnamon Queen and 2 Rhode Island Red crosses. The one with the silvery feathers on her back is Purdy, cause she is so pretty. The solid red one is Sweetie because that is what she is and the lighter colored one is Queenie, the Cinnamon Queen. DH is in town at this very minute buying the supplies to make our Hotel Chick Chick. What is that you are using on the outside? I had suggested buying a used dog run then covering with the chicken wire (I know how anal DH is when he is making something, and I didn't want this to take a month to build.lol) But no, he wanted to build it. I had 4 chickens that a guy had given me and was getting eggs from 3 of them. I let them free range because I wasn't prepared with a coop of anything. (The ones I have now are in the back yard and I have a cage for them at night!) After about a week, the big RIR that laid such large pretty brown eggs "dissappeared". Then I heard a commotion of barking that sounded like my dogs down at my neighbors house. I went down there and my smallest Rat Terrier had one of them and the other dog was barking at her like crazy. The chicken was dead so I beat her with it to within an inch of her life. She gives the ones I have now a WIDE BERTH! Now I'm down to 1 layer and 1 non layer. UGH! My layer disappeard. I had really gotten attached to her! A few days later the neighbor told DH he heard a commotion then say a big black dog running down the road with her in his mouth. Still don't know whose dog it was. Thus leaves the worthless one running around the place. I bring home the 3 new ones and keep them in the cage from Tuesday till Saturday to be sure they stay when I let them out. Sometime during that time, worthless disappeared! Told DH I HAVE to have a coop NOW! lol

happ, are you the one I got the 'walking iris', I believe it was called, from? I have them all potted up and they are green and healthy, but not doing anything. What are they suppose to do? I've forgetten.

My passion vine has fruity all over it. I'm anxious to try it out. It is still green so have to wait until it turns purplish. What I read is it takes 70-80 days. May just get some before we have a frost.

Please pray for the people of Northeast Oklahoma. We have wildfires burning that has consumed approx. 50,000 acres and several homes. I'm across the lake/river from where they are, but they have evacuated the west side of a town about 12 miles southwest of me. I have ash falling. We could smell the smoke and see a haze in the air this morning. I was cleaning my pool and couldn't figure out what all this stuff floating in my pool was. Went out about an hour ago and my car had all this ash all over it. Went and looked at my pool again and it is covered. Smoke is obliviating the sun on the south side. Not good.....we are sooooooooooooooo dry. At least the temperatures are going to give us a small break this week.