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<\/a><\/p>\nI know it’s not very creative.\u00a0 But you try naming the 2,000,000 animals who have been born here and see when you run out of distinctive, endearing, and original names.\u00a0 It’s a good thing my children were born before the farm really got going or they would have ended up being called “Baldy,” “Pointy Head,” “Chubby Cheeks,” and “Are You Kidding Me” (which is what my family thought Little’s name was for a long time anyway).<\/p>\n
In any case, my brilliant plan was working brilliantly.\u00a0 Do you know what this is?<\/p>\n
It’s a zucchini plant without a single squash bug on it.<\/p>\n
And this is a cantaloupe vine that lived long enough to produce cantaloupes.<\/p>\n We may actually get watermelons off this vine.<\/p>\n There’s not a single beetle on these tomatoes.<\/p>\n And the cucumbers look beautiful!<\/p>\n How I loved Spike and his ladies.\u00a0 I took pictures of them foraging for bugs in the beans.<\/p>\n Scouring the okra.<\/p>\n Patrolling the melons.<\/p>\n I admit it.\u00a0 I was guinea paparazzi.\u00a0 And when one of the ladies decided to make a nest and prepared to hatch out more squash bug-eating babies, I was ecstatic.\u00a0 You go, girl!<\/p>\n I’m not saying I overreacted when the second female started her nest.\u00a0 But there might have been party hats involved.<\/p>\n Oh, we were on our way to a pest free garden!\u00a0 The amounts of vegetables that would be produced!\u00a0 There would be canning!\u00a0 Freezing!\u00a0 Farmers Markets!\u00a0 Never again would I stagger down to the garden with a sprayer filled with Castille Peppermint Soap.\u00a0 No more sprinkling of DE—which guaranteed that a thunderstorm would spring up and wash it all away.\u00a0 No more trying to scrape squash bug eggs off leaves without simultaneously destroying the plant.\u00a0 No ordering praying mantises (manti?) or floating row covers.\u00a0 No more pureeing pests in the blender with water and then pouring the mixture at the base of plants (This last measure was recommended in a gardening book as an effective means of deterring bugs on your plants.\u00a0 I have no idea why.\u00a0 Did it smell funny?\u00a0 Did it act as a barrier?\u00a0 Did the bugs recognize pieces of Aunt Martha’s thorax and run away screaming in terror?).\u00a0 The days of desperate measures and futile acts to protect the garden’s produce were over.<\/p>\n Too bad that while I was busy celebrating, Circumstances was busy creeping up behind me.\u00a0 Because broody guineas spend about 22 hours a day on their nests.\u00a0 Which means for 22 hours a day, Spike is the only guinea on pest patrol.\u00a0 And as it turns out, Spike prefers to patrol the perimeters of the fence line, hoping someone will toss another couple of libidinous females his way.<\/p>\n He paces this way…<\/p>\n and that way.<\/p>\n Sometimes he just stands there.<\/p>\n Kind of makes me think that the ladies were doing the bug-eating work the entire time.\u00a0 Spike was just a poser.\u00a0 A figurehead.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be surprised if he started peeing on himself any day now.<\/p>\n Now the zucchini looks like this:<\/p>\n And the cucumber looks like this:<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n