Chickens, Bees and a Bad Case of the Uglies

While the boy was helping me cook dinner tonight, he was scrolling through Kate and Crew's blog Gardening Without Skills, looking at the pictures and videos of her chickens. He says to me very nonchalantly while he's scrolling through, "Mom, did you know chicken comes from chickens?" He wasn't looking at me to see my expression, but instead he remained engrossed in Kate's video of the chicken jumping for the string she posted a few weeks ago. I feigned ignorance like any good mother would. He continued, "Yea. It's kind of like milk and how that comes from a cow. I've seen how you get milk from a cow, but I wonder how the chickens make chicken...."

It was at this point that I was even more grateful he was not looking in my direction, but when he did hazard a look up I had to quickly fake a coughing fit into the pot holder. At the onset of his last statement, I had just removed a pan of chicken from the oven; there was no way I was going to detail to him how chickens "make" chicken. When I regained my composure, I just stammered that he should let me know when he finds out.

He's a funny kid. This was right up there with the statement that "all girls are weird." He qualified this. It wasn't like his sister or his mom weird, but just other girls. They were weird like a "spider with a big pink bow" or a "turtle with socks" type of weird. His father just nodded and I couldn't come up with anything in support of my gender. He wasn't far off the mark.

Anyway, back to the gardening. Figured I'd give this day to some happy bees and some ugly mugs.

These guys work so hard all day long. I try to go out there when they've "finished" to lift up the vines to look for cucumbers and the like, but there's no down time for these guys!

This next guy is just ugly. These guys are constantly changing in appearance. I think I took a picture of one of these guys, or wait, he may have been in the film last week, but they start off all nice and black with red bodies and then turn quickly into this ugly thing.

As if it couldn't get any uglier. Look inside this tomato. You can click on it to enlarge it.

Can you see him in there? He's a rather fat one so I'm sure he's been chomping away for some time. Jerk. I wasn't about to pry open the tomato to see what kind of a worm he was, but can anyone ID him from the picture?

I did see some amazing bug action today. I got to watch a ladybug larvae transform into a lady bug. the larvae perched itself on one leaf and slowly curled up on itself. It turned pink, then it got two spots towards the front of his back. I just went out there and now he has four spots on his back. I bet by tomorrow, he'll be a full fledged lady bug. It's been great to watch. However, I now realize I've thrown a couple of those pink things in soapy water, not recognizing them for what they were. I feel very guilty about that now.

On the upside of the world, here is my harvest for the day. I picked another one of those massive zucchinis that had yet to flower and a total of seven cucumbers. I gave six to a neighbor being that we already have four in freezer and I'm not making any more pickles any time soon. I blanched and froze two more packages of zucchini/squash and two of green beans. Those will be very nice in the future. Anyway, I'm trying to post this during an off chance moment of respite which has now come to an end. The boy and girl are playing slay the dragon, and the girl, who is in the knight's costume (the role the boy assigned her, himself), just took his instructions literally and put him out of commission with the wooden sword. I suppose I'd better intervene.

*sigh* The morning comes early, but sometimes bedtime can't come soon enough. :) Sweet gardening dreams.