Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Wild passionflower


Here is a passionflower that just showed up in my garden. I noticed it several months ago and it's finally blooming! I have seen this plant for sale at the desert botanical garden's plant sale so I think it is somewhat local to here though I never see them. It sure is a nice change of pace to have a passionflower volunteer instead of that stinky lantana that shows up everywhere and is impossible to get rid of.


The ducks and the chickens are together in the animal pen, at first the chickens were afraid of them, but have since realized they are twice as big. It makes feeding difficult as they currently need separate feeds and the chickens would be happy to eat all the layer pellets and then have the duck food for dessert. Roxy the chicken watched the ducks swim around in a little tub I had out for them and decided it looked like a good idea and has now taken to wading in the ducks' water.

One of the reasons I haven't been posting as much recently is because I've been so busy rebuilding the chicken coop. I've got new chicks on the way soon and want to have a space that will be comfortable for 11 hens. I did it now while it's still hot because it is bulk trash time, so there is all kinds of stuff to look through along the street. I was able to find enough lumber and materials to recycle from the bulk trash that my entire coop rebuild cost $25. I also found a heavy-walled small kids pool/sandbox which I grabbed for the ducks. I plumbed it so now it can drain through a hose coming out the bottom and I don't have to empty dirty duck water with buckets at dawn everyday. I'll post pics of all this soon.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gorgeous flower! :)

Joe said...

Very cool! Passionflowers have always amazed me because of their unusual and colorful flowers. The species passiflora caerulea has blue and white flowers that are stunning.

As an additional plus, the vines attract the spectacular gulf fritillary butterfly, which lays its eggs on the leaves!