Olga Booker

Curl

Personally, I prefer the weight gauge.  I always feel that the dial gauge could go wrong and I would not know anything about it for ages.  I don't mind the noisy "fluttering".  As you said, I can hear it from another room, which, with my ageing memory is not such a bad thing!

Bury

Burp

Cy, I don't know where you live so all I can tell you is that the Charentais needs a long period of sunshine and heat, a  fair bit of water too.  If you were in Europe, I'd happily send you some seeds.  My garden is so fragrant at the moment, wherever you go, you can smell the sweet, sweet smell of melon.  At the moment, we are eating 2 or 3 melons a day.  My favorite way is to eat it with a paper thin slice of prosciutto ham (very popular way to eat it here in France).  The sweet and salty combination is just wonderful!

I don't know anything about the American hybrids mentioned in wikipedia, that is news to me.  I knew that there were some pseudo (hybrid) Charentais that did not quite taste right, but that's all I know unfortunately.  I hope you will find the perfect melon for you!

Been French and back in France for the last 14 years, I guess I am terribly biased.  After tasting so many different melons, I have found that I always go back to the Charentais melon sometimes called melon de Cavaillon.  To me, it is one of the best, but then, there is no accounting for taste.  For instance, I really detest watermelon.

It is a small, bright orange, sweet, juicy and perfumed cantaloupe type melon.  When really sun-riped, the sweet smell assaults your nostrils before you've had a chance to put a  morsel into your mouth.  It is delicious and almost melts in your mouth.  Of course, it has to be really ripe otherwise, you just have a lump of melon flavoured, hard, watery, coarse textured...thing!  Well, you can see I'm biased!

Wikipedia says:

It is a small variety of melon, around the size of a softball. It has flesh similar to most cantaloupes, but with a distinct and more intense aroma, and a more pink hue. It originated in the Charentes region of France, and is most associated with the Provençal area around the town of Cavaillon. Most true Charentais melons are grown in and around this region, and are almost exclusively available in France, owing to the fact that their thin skin and soft flesh does not do well in shipping. Hybrids of this variety are widely grown, they are generally crosses with North American cantaloupes for better shipping characteristics and larger size.  

Thanks Jay for your kind words.

So, if you read my post above, you'll see that Little Mama was 12 years old this year.

Little Mama passed away last night and I am going to miss her dearly.  We buried her in a beautiful spot and next spring, I will plant something on top of her grave.  I don't know what I will plant yet but something that will reminds us of her and her endearing personality.

She was the oldest hen I have ever had.  She was small, cute, sweet-natured, smart, friendly and of course an excellent broody and mother.   Rest in peace little one.

Well, my experience is that during the day, they (the mites) tend to retreat and hide at each end of the perches, they crawl back out as soon as the chickens have gone in - for a feast.   That's when they turn from grey to red, after they've gorged on blood.  I smother each end of the perches with a thick blob of vasseline, it makes it very difficult for them to crawl out of that.  I also wipe the perches with a cloth saturated with neem oil.

Egg boxes have a similar sort of treatment.  I dilute 1 tablespoon of neem oil with a teaspoon of washing up liquid, add 1 litre of water and spray all the boxes at cleaning time.  Of course, the bedding gets a good dose of DE.

It has worked remarkably  well for me.  I do get a one litre of organic neem oil on Amazon France for less than $20 and it goes such a long way.

Nah! I didn't like it that much, it was just a turd of a day today!! How about:

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