Just a Bird Feeder

No I didn't make it. An old man at the flea market made this and no it isn't perfect. It isn't my photo taking that is the problem, the thing is a bit crooked and was obviously made from scrap wood and since the chains go up beside the top instead of through it, I take it he didn't have a drill. He had several other equally imperfect wooden items on his table. I almost walked by since tables with hand made stuff on them usually are a bit too expensive but I peeked at the price on these (there were two of these bird feeders) and it only said $4. That was when I looked up and saw the old man. Just your normal every day old man in jeans and a button up shirt. I'm sure he was just trying to make a little extra money and I said, "What a great price for such a big bird feeder, I'll get this one."  And he smiled and looked proud of himself and came  the table to get my money.
I love the thing! Have no idea where I am going to hang it. It is going to need a sturdy hanger because it is quite heavy. I'd like to put it in the front yard but since I can't seem to get out there to fill the one feeder I already have in the front yard, I might just find a place for it among the many feeders in the back yard.

This wasn't the only deal at the flea market. I got another sheet set for the bed for $7. I got several kids videos for my grandson. I hope he still likes  "Bob the Builder" as they were only 50 cents. And I got this rug:

It was only $4 too and I love it. Have it in the kitchen. The dogs are pretty fond of it too-not sure that is a good thing.

It finally rained yesterday. We had really  been needing a good rain and we got one. It poured. No severe weather  though. It did, however, wash a lot of red clay into the pond. When I went out this morning I couldn't even see the fish. I did see that a turtle had found the pond though and I removed him and later found him back in it so had to put him outside the fence as I was afraid he would eat the fish. So I have had to work out a filter for the pond but I will save that for another post (if it works). I did, however, take a couple of other pictures while out there:

This one is a picture of a bud on my miniature orange rose bush. The ducks had eaten all the leaves off it at one time and it has really struggled to survive. I have it in the back yard and it may be too shaded back there as it is has grow tall spikes instead of bushing out but on three of those spikes are the nicest blooms:

I also took a picture of the lemons this year. Unfortunately there are only 3 this year. I did not prune it last year since it had so few leaves but I guess I should have. We did get a frost the other day but it didn't quite get to us down here by the lake so it didn't get to the lemon tree so the lemons are actually getting ripe while the tree is still outside which didn't happen last year. Last year I had to put it in the greenhouse long before now.

They are larger lemons than I got last year too.

So I'll be posting again if my pond filter actually works and I can get a picture of a clear pond.

De-clutter Day and the Pond

Do you ever have those days where you get looking around your house and realize that half of the stuff you have you just don't use or need? I do and I did yesterday and I got disgusted at all the ridiculous things we had. My house is entirely too cluttered! So today was de-clutter day.

I just started by walking around the house picking up things and putting them in the "Salvation Army bag". "We don't need this. We don't need that. What is that? Never mind we apparently don't need it." All those went in the bag. Then I went into the spare room to get one thing, and things fell, and I got frustrated, and Phil followed me and we started on the spare room. I went through my stuff, Michelle finally decided to give away some boxes of stuff she didn't want (It might have been me making her hold onto all those porcelain dolls...maybe), then Phil started on his stuff and I left to go do the outside work and visit the garden (and I did take pictures so maybe that will be tomorrows post though they aren't real impressive).
So the Salvation Army bag ended up being bags and then I decided to just refill the boxes that way we wouldn't have to burn the boxes too. Needless to say there were more boxes than Phil could fit in the car so I will be making more than one trip (I'll take some each day when I go to work).
The sad part is that we just scratched the surface of our clutter. We aren't exactly "hoarders" as in the TV show. We keep our clutter in the spare room and closets mostly but it is still unnecessary clutter. (I still could not give up Christian's ride on toys or John's table and stools that we made him out of car wheels and empty wooden wire spools.)

While I was outside I tried to take pictures of the pond for you all but it seems harder to take pictures when the sun is out as there are too many shadows. Plus I recently got a new computer and I am really missing my Microsoft Picture "thing" and I can't brighten any of these pictures. I have done the best I can with them though so here they are. The water is a bit murky as I really need make it a decent filter instead of just putting a filter bag over the pump and a filter cartridge under the frog spitter but that will be another project to come when I get all the supplies. The fish seem to all be doing great now even with our cold nights lately.

I know, I'll try to get some better pictures on the next cloudy day or closer to evening as you really can't see anything in these. 

Today's Harvest and an Update

Yeah, I know, I don't post nearly enough anymore. I really don't have any excuses. I just plain am not doing anything self sufficient and interesting lately. I have been working on getting my credit score up and I actually got some credit cards. Now I know what you are thinking, the absolute most horrible thing a self sufficient person could do was go into debt...and I haven't. Yes, I have the cards and I use them but I pay them off every month and my credit score is looking good. If finally realized that if we ever really want to have our own place we have to have that credit score to back it up. Frankly I feel more secure having them as well.
Anyway, that is not what this post is about. It is about harvesting what little my tiny garden gives me and today it was basil .....AND surprise, surprise a real PEPPER!

 I am not sure why I get peppers now and not when it is hot since peppers are supposed to like heat but I am getting a few peppers now. It won't last as even we have to get cold eventually.
Not sure about the rest of the garden. We will have a decent amount of greens, like always, but the turnips and beets look like they will be all tops. I experimented with their new beds by buying all the soil for them and they are apparently too good (yeah, who would have thought?). Anyway, I love greens and don't get enough so I'll take what I get. The basil was made into pesto and we will have pesto pasta tonight with our chicken.
The pond is looking nicer every day. The grass is growing around it and I have planted all sorts of bulbs that I am hoping come up next spring. I did lose about half the fish, a few at a time. Apparently the pond did not cycle with the filter from the fish tank but it is good now with 11 or 12 fish in it. The grass around it is still growing, some looks good, some not so good but I am beginning to think it will survive. I still have to water it every day as we have had a few sprinkles lately but no real rain.
We did have a possum visiting us on the back porch every night but he was hiding on a corner of the porch that I couldn't see the other night when I let Romeo and Echo out and Romeo killed it with one shake of his head. Then he dropped it like he had no idea of what had happened (of course, I was screaming at him and Echo to come back as I was afraid they would get bit). They did not get bit, it was just that quick.
I was hoping that the possum was the reason that I wasn't getting any eggs from the chickens and that now I would get eggs but it has been two days and I still haven't gotten any eggs. I set the trap in case there as another one. I haven't seen any snakes, though it isn't nearly cold enough yet for the snakes to be slowing down this year, so it could still be a snake.
I am still playing my Irish tin whistle and my violin. I am fairly good at the tin whistle but was having problems with my violin playing. I could play lots of good tunes but I never felt that I played them really well and after months and months of practice I should have been playing them well. So I started again. I went back to the beginning and started with the Suzuki violin books this week. I don't have a teacher but have looked up lots of videos online and I am really seeing some improvement. Oh, I am still a long was from playing well but I think it was a step in the right direction.
As for the children: My oldest son is doing well with his new wife at Ft. Campbell, my younger son is still in Afghanistan. I try to send him something every few weeks. My daughter Michelle is still at Augusta Technical College and one of her instructors has nominated her for the GOAL award. He also recommended her for an internship and job but she has not gotten either one of those yet.
I will try to get on here and post a guest post tomorrow but no promises. I might just get on here and try to catch up with everyone else's posts and never get to it. :)

Stuffed Pepper Soup

Phil found this recipe online and I knew right away it was going to be one we were going to like. We "tweeked" it a little bit to fit the ingredients we had here and this is what we came up with.

Take one pound of hamburger and brown it in a pan (mine is  a deep frying pan so I could do it all in one pan), with one small diced onion and some peppers. The recipe actually called for one green pepper but I was using the peppers that I had frozen through the year so mine were red, yellow and green and I put in more than what would equal just one. Probably 2 or 3.
Cook these together until the hamburger is done and drain off the grease.

While this is cooking you need to cook some rice. Enough so that you have about 2 cups when cooked (I cheat and use Boil n' Bag rice because I have never made good rice).

To your meat mixture add a couple of chopped garlic cloves (I was out and had to use powder), salt and pepper and 1 tablespoon sugar. Then add one can of tomato soup and one can of diced tomatoes with chilies (if using your own just add the tomatoes and a chopped up chili or two.). Add a can and a half or so of water. Mix well and add in your rice.

Cover and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle with cheese and enjoy! We used an Italian blend of 5 different cheeses.

We all really liked it. This was really simple and quick to make and I am sure we will be using this recipe again.

So do you like my pond?

Yup, that's what I asked Phil after I got off of work and he said he had never even looked at it...and by then it was dark.
So the next day I came home and said, "So did you like my pond?" and he said, "No" and I thought I had...misheard... and I said, "What?" and he said, "No." .......and it must have been something in the way I looked at him because he quickly said, "It needs more plants around it."
So to clean up what I said back to him," No kidding....", ok, there is no way to clean up the rest but suffice to say, he understood that it would take time for me to collect up what plants that I wanted around it and to make it as nice as I wanted it to be :) In defense, I was tired and I have wanted a pond for a long time and love it already.
But today I felt like I had to get more things to make it look nicer so I struggled with getting one of those big bags of mulch on my cart at the store. I am not a weak person and move 50 lb bags of feed all the time but these things are wet and really, really heavy to move but I managed it (and later about killed myself trying to get it in the trunk...but I managed it!). At another store they had pretty little miniature rose bushes on sale an I seem to have a thing for roses lately and I got one. Later I stopped at the fish store to get the fish. The fish store lady loves me (what's not to love, I have 4 aquariums, a frog tank and a betta bowl and now a pond). She had a koi with lots of babies so I got 20 (yes, I know that is too many but did you know you can eat koi?) and she gave me 23 for just $ .70 each. Can't beat that. Seriously if it gets to be too much, I'll give my friend a few. She has a much bigger pond.
I got home put the groceries away while the fish were acclimating in their plastic bag in the pond. Then I got out there and let them go and got to putting that mulch around it and planting the rose bush (I still haven't planted the three from last week--but I know where I want to plant them...baby steps.. Oh and I managed to cut the power cord than ran everything outside with the first shovel full of dirt--I thought it was a root- but I am thinking that since that cord has been there a good 10 years or so that it was probably time to change it anyway--which I did).
Phil came home with a surprise in his truck. He had gone to do a job and when he got there could  not get in the house he was supposed to work on and then when looking through the window found that the job was not ready for him anyway. However, he did find a bunch of sod in the dumpster! Apparently, they finished the lawn and had some left.
We put it around the pond and watered it in good and will have to keep watering it because even grass doesn't root in this clay easily. Michelle says the pond now looks like our little oasis in the backyard. I agree but we do plan on getting some hay so we can spread some more grass seed and hopefully get more growing.

Maybe you can see the fish in this one.

A Pond

I have always wanted a little pond and lately I kept looking at the kiddie pool we had for the ducks thinking it would make a good pond. I even dug the hole and tried it out but it just really didn't look right so I got online and went looking for pond liner. Pond liner is expensive! But there was a little kit on eBay with a pond liner, pump and frog "spitter" and it was only $26.99 with free shipping so I got that. It came in yesterday and I was quite pleased with how nice the frog decoration looked. This morning it was time to get to work on that long wanted pond. I had to dump the pool and dig the hole out more. I know I have mentioned our red clay way too many times but I did get lucky with my choice of the spot because I only ran into one root and since there are woods all around and roots all through the back yard that you can actually see on top of the ground, that was pretty lucky.

The liner was 5 ft x 5 ft which was just the right size.

I put the pool in the hole first though...

...then added that liner.

Then it was time for rocks and water. It seems so easy just collect rocks from your yard and put them around it but rocks are few and far between in our part of Georgia and since we killed the copperhead on the lawn the other day (I posted that on facebook), I was a bit more careful with my rock hunting.
 It does lean slightly to one side. I am hoping when it rains it will runoff a little spillway that I left at the lower side.

Now here is the frog "spitter". Isn't it cute?

Ok, here is the almost finished product. Well, I am done for today anyway. I plan on digging up several hostas that are getting over grown in the front yard and putting them around it and I also bought some irish bulbs to plant around it. I'll also put some water conditioner in it and take one of the filter media out of one of the fish tanks and put it in the pond so that it will instantly cycle. Then I can add some goldfish.

I also have some water plants in the aquariums that I can use. If it ever rains again I am going to get some grass seed I have spread out there in the back yard as it is bare from the ducks being out there and eating everything.
I also want to show you my new fountain that Phil brought home for me. It is broken on the top and someone he was doing a job for didn't want it anymore. I think it is lovely (Excuse how dirty it is. It sits under the trees and the oak trees especially are dropping leaves and tons of acorns this year. I hope to get out to clean it this weekend.

Flower Deals

It's funny, when I was younger I absolutely loved gardening of any kind- flowers, vegetables, herbs, houseplants etc. but now I seem to go through "spurts". Sometimes I am just all into vegetables and do nothing but vegetables for a few years. Then I somehow get all into flowers.This summer has been a bit of a mix though. I did plant some vegetables but for the most part they were a failure (5 cucumbers, two eating's of basil and maybe 2 tomatoes) so I guess I have turned to the flowers instead. I have some nice planters in the front yard that had great pansies in it through the winter and then they were replace with begonias and hostas. I had a planter out by the mailbox that had lovely violas (Johnny-jump-ups as my mother called them) and then were replaced with tiny pots of chrysanthemums and begonias as well. I have some huge pots of chrysanthemums on either side of the front steps. Inside I added several house plants as they came on sale but today's sale were for flowers.
The chrysanthemums are on sale again and I really just couldn't resist as they are three times the size they were last year for $.97 and I had that little flower garden started out back by the fence that I had put the roses in. I am not good about picking and matching colors. I am more of a "cottage garden" kind of girl where everything is all jumbled together but pretty. For instance my front flower garden is a jumble of elephant ears, yellow lantana, red rose, pink daphnie, dark pink 4 o'clocks, and some white flowering bush that I have never learned the name of. The rose takes over in the spring and then the 4 o'clocks over run everything in the fall (there used to be morning glories and I will have to get more seed).
Anyway, here is the little garden so far, not really jumbled like the front garden but those are red roses on either side a lilac rose in the middle and the purple and yellow chrysanthemums.

I know the roses don't look like much but they are growing new leaves so I think they will be fine next year especially the lilac one in the middle that grew in such poor conditions on the other side of the house.  I have mulched this bed too since that is pure red clay here and on a slight slope which means all the good soil will just wash right off if I don't but I did buy this bag of mulch today and I usually just mulch with raked up pine straw from the yard. But I saw this bag and it was only $3.39 and I decided to try it. In the second handful I found a piece of rope about a foot long. A few seconds later I found a piece of tin foil and after that I found two circular pieces of plastic. Who knew mulch was just trash? Anyway, I was not real impressed and this tiny little garden took up half the bag and I could have used the whole bag on it but I had looked down at my legs and they were literally covered with mosquitoes. The mosquitoes are quite bad this year with all the rain. Almost makes us wish for drought again.
The 'mums aren't the only deals on flowers today though. I was not as good as Mark at finding perennials but then the petunia can be a perennial here. Though when they come back the next year they all seem to be the lilac color instead of the colors here.

At $2.50 I just couldn't resist these and I actually wouldn't have gone looking for them at all except some woman passed me with a cart that had these baskets hanging all over the outside. I restrained myself and just got one but petunias have been a favorite of mine since I found they could be perennial here. Plus this is a red, white and blue (purple) pot of petunias and it was very patriotic looking.
This might have been all the flowers that I purchase today but the grocery store had some marked down too and I had admired them when I went to that same store last Tuesday but would not buy them for $8. Today they were $ .99.

The two spiky ones in the back are Celosia cristata pumosa 'Venezuela DarkCaracas' and, of course, the plant in the front is hypoeses or as we call them Pink Polka Dot Plant.
When I lived in the North pink polka dot plant was just another house plant but here it is often planted outside. Since it is nearly fall here I think I will keep this one in through the winter and plant it out again next spring.
I am really not sure about the Celosia as I have never grown it before but it does say full or part-sun on the tag so that means the front yard for us. Maybe I will put them in hanging baskets (I have three hooks for hanging baskets on the porch and only the petunias out there now) and then try to over winter them in the greenhouse. Doesn't matter, they were unusual for a flower and I liked them.

I really am doing some vegetable gardening though. I have cleaned out one of the raised beds and planted lettuce and I have another almost clean and will do some cauliflower, spinach mustard tendergreens, and maybe some cabbage or whatever I can find for plants in the others. I also have another cutting of basil to harvest this weekend too. Hopefully the fall garden will be better than the summer one was.
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Gardens and Dining at Lake Lure

This is a continuation of our trip to Lake Lure Inn and Spa for my sons wedding. I wanted to tell you about what we ate and the gardens there. 

I will start with what we ate. There is a very nice and very expensive dining room at the hotel and I just had my heart set on dining there. I really don't know why. Normally I would not be excited by eating in such a fancy, formal place but I just wanted to do it just once. 

It was a very pretty place.

And as you can see it was also very empty. There was only one other diner at the time willing to part with so much money for a meal apparently. 

We had clam stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer. They were pretty good but wouldn't be a favorite for me. 

For our main course I ordered braised trout with lemons. It came with rice pilaf with mushrooms and broccoli.The trout was absolutely excellent (I hadn't actually had trout in years and years and then it was wild trout we caught ourselves but trout has always been a favorite of mine) and the rice pilaf wasn't bad but a bit plain. The broccoli was cooked perfectly for me but Phil who also had broccoli did not like it as it was too hard for him. Phil had the ribeye steak and new potatoes and it was also excellent (he gave me a bite). Michelle being the almost vegetarian that she is, had a salad but with grilled chicken.They sent her quite a big salad with lots of strips of grilled chicken and she was not able to eat it all.

The wine we chose was....um beer! Hah, we didn't get too fancy did we? But even the beer was a real treat because we never drink and drive and I don't drink during any of our dinners out since he can't so we never drink at restaurants. We were able to at this one only because we just had a short walk to our room. 

Anyway, it was a lot of money and I probably wouldn't do it again but it was just incredibly nice to do it this time.

As I mentioned in my last post. The only other place we ate was a little dinner on the other side of the motel and we at there for breakfast. 

Another shot of a table off on one end and the view of the lake and mountains.

Totally different from our dining the night before. As you can see we sat outside at a very rustic table. We were surrounded by planters of herbs. (A woman came out and was watering the lemon balm and it smelled wonderful). Our view was the lake. It was quite and so nicely cool (it was about 7:00 a.m. in the morning and it is not usually that cool here in Georgia ). Our breakfast was a buffet and we had eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, biscuits, gravy, French toast and pancakes (no we did not eat all that, it was just what was offered). It was so comfortable that we took our time and just enjoyed it. Later after we had walked back and found the groom my son who had not eaten, we walked him over and treated him to breakfast there as well.

So that was our dining experience at the Lake Lure Inn and Spa. We ate food prepared by the hotel at the reception and their chicken and pork and several other dishes were excellent as well. 

On to the gardens. I made sure to take pictures of the garden mainly because I do so enjoy reading Mark's posts about gardens he sees on his trips that I felt I should do the same. There were lots of lovely gardens at the hotel. This first one I am going to show is the back of the Roosevelt Hall which is where we had the reception. I have never been a big fan of rock gardens but this one was really nice. 

I loved all the different colors of these though I have no idea what they are. 

Moving on to the front of Roosevelt Hall.

Yes it is gorgeous! All in bloom and just lovely. 

Then going on up the hill to the other building that were used in the movie Dirty Dancing, Baby's Bungalo has the prettiest garden beside it. It is a shade garden with a couple little paths and benches. It is not real full or colorful but it still looks so pretty. 

Another view, same garden. 

Behind the hotel there was this small little odd space that they also made into a little garden. I don't feel like my pictures really do it justice but it was a small space and hard to get pictures of it. It was just a little square with stuff planted all around.

A closer shot of one side. 

The only other picture I got was one of these big pots. These were outside between each rooms and filled with different things. They really made it pleasant just walking to your room (our rooms were on the beachfront part of the hotel which is more like the motel part). 

I am very sad that I missed the Flowering Bridge. We passed it while we were headed on our little shopping trip in Chimney Rock but were just too hot to stop on the way back to look at it. It is an old bridge and when the built the new bridge they decided to save the old one and make it into a flowering bridge with a winding path. It looked quite beautiful as we were passing. You can read about it and see pictures here:

https://www.facebook.com/lakelurefloweringbridge

So our dining and the gardens were wonderful. I would love to go back again and hope we get the chance when we can stay a day or two longer. 

Lake Lure, Chimney Rock, NC

As some of you who are on my facebook page know, we actually went somewhere! We went to North Carolina for my oldest sons wedding.
Being from New Hampshire and living in Georgia means Phil and I dearly miss seeing mountains on the horizon so it was a wonderful thing when the mountains came into view and the ones by the hotel we stayed at were particularly nice.

The hotel was The Lake Lure Inn and Spa and it is where the movie Dirty Dancing was filmed. There is a large main building and then a smaller more motel like "beach side" rooms.

There is a lake beach across the road from it but we weren't exactly "beach side" from our rooms. Anyway, the place really is lovely for a hotel. To get there you have to go down the small incredibly winding road. I have been through the Appalacian mountains many times and there are a lot of twisty roads but never like this one.
After we had settled in we went down the road to the little tourist town of Chimney Rock. So named for its chimney rock, of course. After seeing how high up it was we decided not to make the climb.

Though I wouldn't have minded a closer look at this waterfall.

There is just one street of touristy shops and we paid our dollar to park and went to visit them. I only took one picture in one of the gem shops.

Behind the shops was the "river" though it looked like a large stream to me.

Well, I was going to add to this post where and what we ate but some of those pictures are on Michelle's phone which, of course, is never charged so that will have to wait for another post. I will be posting later today, pictures of the gardens around the hotel if I get the chance.
I'll leave you with this last shot of my son and his new wife. They are a great couple and I believe are going to be quite happy!

Not Much of a Gardener

I have not been much of a gardener this summer. I do have excuses though. I have been working from 8:00 to 5:30 all summer. I never work that many hours but this year with a new director, I felt it was necessary. When you are taking care of this many children, I think it is important to do it well.
Anyway, that is not my only excuse. It has rained more than I have ever seen it rain during the summer in all the years I have lived here in GA. For a couple weeks it rained every day and on other weeks it rained at least once or twice a week. The weeds in the garden are just right out of control and I have no time to pull them.The garden  is quite literally scary to step in. I am very careful to watch for snakes. With the rain have also come the mosquitoes. We don't normally have that much problem with the mosquitoes but they are terrible this year. Bug spray is a must and I really hate spraying the stuff on me but there is no other choice if you are going to be outside this year.
Excuse number three would be that we just have been doing other things on the weekends, with helping my brother move and repairs on the house, my trips to the garden are few and quick.
It really hasn't been much of a garden anyway. As you all know I just threw in some seeds this year and put the pepper and tomato plants in late. The squash plants died off pretty quickly, some bug got in the stems, the pumpkin plant lasted longer but not much, the beans got over run by the weeds. I did get a few but not much. The tomatoes got eaten down by a deer. They have grown back and grown real tall but have only produced about 5 green tomatoes so far. The pepper plants have done what bell pepper plants always do in my garden, they produce blooms but not peppers.
One success, however, has been the cucumbers. My cucumber plants don't usually produce very much because we get hot too quick and they just die off. This year with the rain and cooler temps, they are thriving.

 So far I have gotten 4 cucumbers in all which is a record for my garden. Here are two I picked the other day.

 Unfortunately one of them had worms which I had never even seen in a cucumber but the other one did not have any and Phil ate it last night.
We may even get a few more..

The only other success in the garden is the basil. I had a package (small) of basil from my seed-of-the-month club that I just tossed in between the blueberry plants. They did well and I cut them today to make pesto.

There is one other edible thing growing in the yard that is doing well and that is the garlic chives.  This patch of garlic chives have been there on our little hill 6 or 7 years (maybe longer) and I hadn't seen it bloom before.

Besides cutting the basil my gardening chores today were to plant rose bushes. I got two little rose bushed marked down to $2.12 yesterday.

The tag says Red Drift. Some type of miniature rose. I planted them outside the fence on one side of the arch (the other side is shaded by the fig tree) and then I went and dug up a rose bush on the other side of the house. It also has miniature blooms but they are lilac colored. It has lived on the other side of the house for years now but only ever gets a couple of blooms if it reaches out enough because that side is shaded by the house. I think it will do much better on the side with the fence if it lives through my transplanting it at this time of year.

 As you can see it has no leaves on it so I felt it was doing so poorly that it was worth the risk. I did intend to trim it down to help it grow more roots but right then the neighbors dog trotted over and Echo was in the back yard. She got so excited and crazy that she chased one of the bantam chickens and caught it (she has not caught one before). I had a heck of a time getting her off it and it was gone by the time I had taken Echo to the house so I don't know how much damage she did but I don't have much hope for that bantam. He was just one of the three rooster bantams that wander the yard but I will not have the dogs attacking the chickens EVER!  Anyway, I should probably get out there and finish the trimming job and then get that pesto made...