Still picking raspberries

I picked another mess of raspberries last night. Brian enjoyed some on ice cream. I'm holding out for more cobbler. This time I picked our canes, which have almost finished, and then headed down the driveway to forage for more. There were several good patches, including one phenomenal spot where the berries were bigger around than my thumb. This magical spot is thanks to run-off from our neighbors' pile of horse manure. Motivation for me to get ours mulched again this fall using some sheep manure.

During my foraging, I checked on one patch that I thought was raspberries, but turns out they are blackberries. They are loaded. Unfortunately, this patch is in the middle of the next field the sheep are slated to graze. We may have to fence the flock out of the blackberries. If we don't, there will be nothing left. I don't mind them pruning the canes later, but I would like to get some blackberries.

In other exciting news, the pullets have started laying! At least one of them has, because I have found one mini egg every other day over the past week. In other chicken news, but not so exciting, we have lost 5 chickens in recent days to some kind of marauder. The first to go was a beautiful, black Jersey Giant hen. Apparently she was attacked through the electrified net, but the predator couldn't pull her through it. I found her in a mess of feathers up against the fence. A day or two later I went out to feed the three roosters in the bachelor coop and found only feathers. All three of them were gone. Then a few days later I discovered a small patch of feathers just outside the fence around the layers' coop. I quickly counted, and one of the Rhode Island Red pullets was missing. I suspect she was outside of the fence when she was nabbed. Not sure what's getting these chickens, but we have everyone on lock down.

Of course, there isn't much we can do when the silly chickens run around outside of their fence. When I went down to the layers' coop this morning, two pullets were wandering around outside. The Rhodie flew straight up in the air and back over the fence as soon as I got down there. The White Rock kept running into the fence and trying to get through a 3-inch square hole. They don't call dimwitted people "bird-brains" for no reason!