and the winner is... well winners actually.

sheila was very close with only the original clues.
so close in fact that tabitha wanted me to call it over.
so sheila gets a bar of soap

christiana's ten year old also gets a bar of soap too. mostly correct still missing the chicken feeding part though.

stephanie got it almost exactly.

the idea:

we have a plague of japanese beetles here every year. they munch our fruit trees and other garden plants. tabitha took to holding a bucket with a little water under the fruit tree branches and shaking them into the bucket. then she would dump the bucket of hundreds of beetles into the chicken coop. the chickens would go crazy and munch them all up.

standard beetle traps clog and need to be cleaned regularly. i guess it can be scary since the pheromone lure can attract volumes of the beetles and if you don't kill them all in an overflowing trap you have just made your problem worse. all those extra attracted beetles eating more of your stuff than they did before.

so my idea is to hang this little hut in the chicken coop. it will hang completely within reach of the chickens. the bait will be protected from the elements and chickens within the cage and roof. it will be easy to load new bait and hang back on a screw for the chickens. hopefully the beetles won't be able to get to the lure/bait. i intend them to just try to get to it and swarm the little shed where my chickens will be poised for lunch.

this is completely untested and still a developing theory. testing will ensue once beetle season starts. i'll have an update regarding this topic at that time.

sheila, christiana and stephanie please email me your postal addresses and your packages will be on the way shortly. omelay (at) gmail (dot) com

happy spring
k-)