Mango Cottage Life

What a perfect Valentine’s Day present.  One of our ‘girls’ laid her first egg.  You can’t really see the slight aqua tint in the photo, but it’s there.  That tint tells me that it was one of the 2 Americanas.  A quick vent check leads me to believe that it is probably Blondie, the white Americana (supposed to be unusual)  Poor girl has a gimp foot but she manages fine and is beautiful.  The ‘girls’ (there are 3) are only 4.5 months old, still small, and this egg is small – just fills the cup in the palm of my hand.  I’m sure the eggs will get bigger as the ‘girls’ get bigger… they’re only young teenagers now.

Did you know toads have a vocabulary… croaking isn’t the only noise they make?  And they have a temper too!  I didn’t, not until today.

We grow our gardens using organic methods here at Mango Cottage.  That means good bugs, moisture, organic matter and stuff in our garden beds.  It means toads too.  I’ve discovered the toads like to ‘live’ in the corners of the raised beds, burrowed down in the cool moist soil.  It’s September, BIG planting month, so we’re getting any empty 4 x 8 raised beds ready to be planted.  The toads living in the corners DON’T like it!  They pop out of their holes and screech at me – sounds like a tennis shoe squeaking on wet grass.