All summer long it seemed like we were living in a desert. Now that it is fall, the weather conditions more closely resemble that of a rainforest. Whereas I've never been to a rainforest myself, I imagine them to be filled with beautiful parrots and funny monkeys. Our newly emerging rainforest, however, has neither parrots nor monkeys, but it is hosting a plague of slugs! More specifically, my garden bed of fall greens is hosting a plague of slugs. Yesterday morning, still in my pajamas, I handpicked at least a hundred slugs off of the broccoli, kale and cabbage plants, and I was just barely scratching the surface. I found another 30 or so drowned in the beer traps I set out the night before. The whole endeavor almost killed my appetite for breakfast.

All of the gray rainy weather has limited my outdoor activities, so I've finally gotten around to an indoor project that I've had in mind for a long time. For about a year, I've been saving my empty poly-weave chicken feed bags and have now begun the process of "up-cycling" them into tote bags!

My sewing machine handled the job like a champ, and I am quite pleased with the results. My chickens only go through about one bag a month, or less in good foraging season, so I will run out of raw materials shortly. Joe's uncle has about 50 chickens, so I'm hoping he'll save his feed bags for me. I've had several people encourage me to try selling them at the farmer's market. Who knows….

Chickens in a haybale bed

Louise is still slightly bedraggled but is doing great. You can see her wing feather are even starting to grow back.