Feed Jelly to Your Orioles

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Store in a labeled, opaque bottle.ab the oil on a bandanna, clothing, hat or skin. Keep away from eyes and mouth.

Teresa Sole
Portland, Oregon

The Mothering Instinct

Fifteen years ago, my husband and I purchased 62 acres. I didn’t waste any time buying four Rhode Island Red bantam hens and one rooster.

One of the descendants of my original bantam hens is getting along in age and has stopped laying. This doesn’t seem to stop her from wanting babies so badly that she steals baby chicks from other hens. Once I found a mother hen frantic, looking for her babies. The missing babies were tucked under a very contented little, old hen. After a few unsettling days, they worked it out and the old hen kept just one of the chicks.

Our guineas have started and abandoned several nests, but have not been successful in hatching any keets.uring their last attempt, my husband decided to incubate a dozen of their abandoned eggs. Three keets hatched. The next day, we moved them from the incubator into an enclosed area with a heat lamp. On the third day, we decided to put one of our bantam hens in with the keets. We left them alone, and a short time later, she had the babies under her wings.

When the keets were about two weeks old, the hen gingerly went outside with the keets close behind. A few days later, a Cooper’s hawk stole one of the keets. The hen was very upset and didn’t quiet down for some time. As I watched her with the two remaining babies, I heard a strange sound coming from her that I had not heard before. Her sound was answered by the baby guineas. It dawned on me that she was talking to them; she was mimicking the sound guineas make that is different from that of a chicken. This little hen was trying to be their mother in every way, even learning their language.

Hope Pettit
Corvallis, Oregon

Save Your Invoices

When ordering nut, fruit or other trees from a catalog, keep the invoice until the trees leaf out and you can confirm they’re the type you ordered. I ordered almond trees; the label said they were almond trees, but when the trees leafed out, they were peach.

Margaret Metcalf
Canadian, Oklahoma

Tools on Wheels

I use a large, wheeled garbage can to store my long-handled gardening tools. I can roll the garbage can to any location in my garden. It sure has been a handy device.

Charlotte Bryant
Greensburg, Kentucky

... And Broadaxes for All

In the February/March 2005 issue, Bill Coperthwaite wrote about a “Democratic Axe” design. Coperthwaite named it the democratic axe because his simple design allows anyone with metal-working skills to make it. A hewing axe or broadaxe such as Coperthwaite’s is used to square timbers or flatten the sides of round logs for house and barn construction. The cutting edge of this short-handled axe is only beveled on one side, like a chisel. The axe handle can be attached to the head in such a way that it works for a right- or left-handed person.

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