Chicken Tractor Repair

The Fall Garden is starting to grow nicely.  All the little tender plants are popping up on every row. I've noticed, but so have the 3 little chicks in our pasture.  The trouble is, they can fit between the 4 x 4 fencing that separates the garden from the pasture.  Prior to putting up this heavier fence, I had a 2 x 4 welded wire fence, but the goats broke through it and ate up the Spring Garden.  Now I've gotten the goats out of the garden, but the chicks can get in.  The work is never done!

I have a plan though.  One of our 3 chicken tractors on the pasture is smaller than the others.  I use it primarily for placing pullets in while they are growing and before I let them roam free on the pasture. While they are small and susceptible to hawk or owl predation, I keep them in the tractor where they will be safe.  The only problem with that is, Big Boy.  Big Boy, aka Bad Boy, is our Great Pyrenees livestock guard dog. When the last chickens moved out to free range, he began occupying the chicken tractor as a respite from the heat of the summer.  It was his dog house and he wasn't a good house keeper.  He pulled all the chicken wire off of it and dug holes to cool himself in the cool dirt.

Item #1: Need to put wire back on chicken tractor

When I say holes, I mean monstrous craters.  I have to fill in all these holes now to keep the cows from stepping in them.  Also, big holes like this make it next to impossible to push the chicken tractor across the pasture.

Item #2: Need to fill in Big Boy's craters

I moved Big Boy out of the chicken tractor to his new area.  He's done a great job in protecting our livestock.  We haven't lost a single bird to predators.  But as with most of us, he's got some character flaws that we're trying to work on.

Big Boy's new area

One of the things I tried on the chicken tractor last year that didn't work was having casters on the front. Casters did allow me to turn the chicken tractor SO much easier, but not after a rain.  They would dig down in the mud and I'd have to lay boards down in order to roll the tractor forward.  I like to roll the tractor to fresh grass each and every day, so that the birds can forage for fresh grass, seeds, and bugs.

Mud clogged casters

I anticipated this problem and got double-wheeled casters, but they still didn't work, so off they come.

The caster was a disaster

I used a drill to put a hole in the frame and then placed two wheels on each side to replace the casters. These wheels will roll better, but when you want to turn the tractor, you must lift it.

Item #3: Replacing the casters with wheels.

Here's what the finished product looks like:

New wheels for the tractor

I had saved the 2 x 4 welded wire fencing that I removed from the garden and I measured the amount I'd need and cut exactly that amount.  Benjamin helped me staple it to the frame.  I have half of the tractor enclosed with corrugated tin and half enclosed with fencing.  This allows the birds to have shelter from the wind and rain, but still have the fresh air, sun and breeze as well - the best of both worlds.

My trusty helper

Then I put the Momma Hen and her three little biddies in the tractor.  Look how big they are getting! Just the other day they were little cute chicks.  In no time they've grown up and aren't so cute anymore.  Well, no more getting in the garden - Or so I thought!  Those little boogers squeezed themselves between the gaps in the 2 x 4 fencing and lo and behold, the next morning they were scratching in the garden.

Momma and Biddies in the chicken tractor

To fix this, I measured again and cut another piece of fencing and offset it against the fencing Benjamin stapled to the chicken tractor.  I used tie wire and staples to affix the second piece of fencing to the frame.  If you look in the far corner, you can see the biddies behind the trough and waterer.  It worked!

Now you're not getting out!

However, the very next morning, I was greeted to this sight.  You know what it is? Some creatures poked their head through the 2 x 4 welded wire fencing and broke the welds.  The creatures then craned their necks through, widening the hole until they were able to eat the rice that I had poured into the trough for the momma hen and her chicks.

Doggonit!!!!

Wanna guess who the perpetrators were?  Here's their mugshots right here:

Guilty as Charged

In the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25:31-46, our LORD tells the parable of the sheep and the goats:

The Judgment

31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats;33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father,inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

41 “Then He will also say to those on His left (the goats), ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Before we owned goats, I used to wonder when reading this passage why the goats were seen as the evil ones, the bad characters.  Now, I know why.  Yes, indeed.  Now I know why...

A Great Alternative to Ground Black Pepper

We haven't purchased Black Pepper in quite some time.  Instead, we've been making our own ground pepper using Criolla Sella peppers (a South American variety) that we grow, dry and grind.  They have a unique bright orange color, a smoky aroma, and a deep flavor that is just perfect for seasoning our dishes - a little heat, but not an over-powering spiciness.

The plants are prolific producers of peppers that grow to a maximum of about 3 inches long and go from green to day-glo orange in the matter of a day or so.  We harvest every couple of days.  We only have two plants in the garden, but really that's all we need.  The plants grow to about 3 feet tall, bushy, with lots of foliage and produce well in dry or wet conditions.

Ripened Criolla Sella Peppers ready for picking

We'll bring the ripe peppers in, wash them up to clean them.  Sometimes there will be spider webs or other debris that we have to get off of them prior to processing. Then we pull the green stem and cap off of the pepper.  I've tried several different ways to dry them and the one that I think works the best is to split the peppers in half.  I then use a potato peeler to run along the inside to remove the seeds.

I remove the seeds if I want to make ground pepper, but sometimes (especially for seasoning chili) I'll leave the seeds in to allow a little more heat to come through. Then I'll put the split peppers in our food dehydrator trays and turn it on.  I'll check on them from time to time and when one is dry enough to crumble in my hand, it's ready!

Dried Criolla Sellas

I'll put the chopping blade on the food processor and dump the dried peppers in. How about the color of these peppers?  Aren't they more exciting looking than dull, boring black pepper?

Ready to Grind

I'll just turn the processor on the highest setting and let it chop.

Chop Chop

I'll check on it and when it is ground to the consistency that I'm aiming for, I'll remove the blade and use a funnel to pour the pepper into containers that I save.

Ground Orange Pepper

The ground pepper is very aromatic.  I have yet to be able to make a batch without sneezing!

Ah, Ah, Ah Chew!

We make a batch every week or so and continue to fill up old pepper or seasoning containers that we have saved.

Spicy Criolla Sellas

We have used different seasoning mixes in the past like Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning or Slap Ya Momma, but I think that we're going to experiment with making our own by adding salt, garlic powder and some other spices, and mixing it all up real good in the food processor and funneling it back into the seasoning can. We'll let you know how that goes.

Processing Persimmons

Around this time every year, little orange persimmons start falling from the skies in our side yard. I'm talking about wild persimmons.  I've posted about these before, but perhaps someone's just started following us.  The wild persimmons are a little smaller than a golf ball and a chock-full of big seeds. As a result, most people might not bother with them.

We like to make a persimmon cake with them so we gather them up and package them.  One of Benjamin's chores this time of year is to go pick the freshly fallen persimmons before the birds get them.  Once ripened, they'll fall into the soft grass beneath the trees.  They are very, very sweet.  My neighbor told me in the past he caught a family of raccoons in the tree picking the sweet fruit.

Wild Persimmon that just hit the ground

He'll pluck the cap off of them and bring them inside, dumping them into a colander, and wash them off.  The fruit sometimes will burst and the inside of the fruit is very sticky.  Little pieces of grass will stick to the fruit, so we wash all of that off.

One day's harvest

We'll batch process them by putting a few of them in a fine-meshed sieve placed over a measuring cup and use a wooden spoon to mash the fruit, pushing the sticky pureed fruit through the sieve and into the measuring cup.  You can see that the sieve holds the seeds and skin back.  We'll scoop all that into the compost bucket.

The sieve stops the seeds from going through

Here's the bottom of the sieve.  Noting but sticky sweet fruit dripping into the measuring cup.

Pureed Persimmon

After a short task of hand-processing, this is what is left - seedless persimmon puree.  We'll do this every day for a week or so while the fruit from our tree is falling.  

Now as discussed, we used this to make a delicious cake.  The recipe for persimmon cake calls for 1 and 1/2 cups of persimmon puree, so we'll freeze individual packages containing that amount and stack them in the freezer flat like below.  Once frozen we'll move them to the freezer outside.  We can look in the freezer and determine how many cakes we'll be looking forward to! 

A future persimmon cake

Here's the post from last year that contains the recipe: Recipe for Persimmon Cake

Husband and Wife Trees

In our side yard we have two mature pecan trees that provide nice a nice, shady spot over some St. Augustine grass that spreads over the ground like a comfortable quilt.  Sometimes on those perfect days in October or in Spring when the weather is so magnificent that you can't help but whistle, we'll go outside and picnic right underneath those trees.  The pecans they produce are small and hard to crack, but you will be rewarded if you persevere, because the small pecans inside are so rich and oily and delicious.  Tricia made a homemade pecan pie last night using some of them and the secret ingredient (Steen's syrup).  Blog post and Recipe HERE  So doggone good!

The trees were planted long ago by a previous owner of the homesite we acquired in 2001.  While our home was being built, we'd come and sit underneath these trees and dream about what the future would hold for our family.  One of the pecan trees has a large, protruding knot, and I remember lifting our kids up into the tree so that they would sit on the knot to look out over the landscape. Can you remember climbing a tree as a child and marveling at the way that the view from way up there gave you a whole new vantage point?

The trees look like twins, don't they?  I mean, they are the same size, and if you were to scoot them together, they would fit together perfectly and the result would be one perfect tree.  Can you see that? I did some reading and found that there is actually a name for this occurrence.  The trees are called Husband and Wife Trees.

Our Husband and Wife Trees

According to Wikipedia, Eric Sloane was an American landscape painter and writer of illustrative works about cultural history and folklore.  He wrote the following in his book, Once Upon a Time: The Way America Was:

Trees were even involved in early American marriages: it was a New England custom to plant two trees at the entrance of a new home, known as "husband and wife trees."  When land was cleared and surrounding forests in New England were almost denuded by the need of charcoal to feed iron furnaces, there were some places in Connecticut where only husband and wife trees remained on the landscape.  Those trees still mark the location of many old farmhouses.

I think that is very, very interesting.  I like things that stand the test of time - things intentionally done - projects embarked on with a purpose.  In researching more about the subject of Husband & Wife Trees, I stumbled across something that is written so beautifully, it flows like honey and I want to share it with you.  This comes from an Agrarian blog called Granny Miller in This Post:

Husband and Wife trees.  Old timers called them that and you hardly ever hear the term any more. It has gone out of fashion: like marrying for life and farming.  Of course the expression is a folk term and an analogy taken from the material and natural world that was used long ago to describe a married couple’s relationship.

A married man and woman are like two separate trees planted in different holes at the same time. They are a permanent fixture in the landscape and together they watch the years and the seasons pass.

The trees are the same size and one does not hinder the growth of the other.

Because the trees stand so close together they are not as subject to wind or ice damage as a single tree is. The two together are more likely to survive adversity.

The trees grow very close to one another, but they are truly separate and there is space enough between them for the wind and air to pass. Their roots are entangled from beneath and how they are joined is hidden from the world. The trees derive their sustenance from the same Source and one cannot be separated from the other without risking them both.

Another angle of our Husband & Wife Trees

What an absolutely profound sentiment!  Husband and Wife Trees.  Now there's a tradition we need to revive.  Speaking of that, The Plain Garden Planting Cycle Found HERE says that from mid-October through November is the very best season for planting trees and shrubs.  Time to get busy.  I always like the old quote, "The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.  The next best time is TODAY!"

Keeping a Tree From Falling on my Garden Fence

A few confessions before we get started:  I am not a lumberjack and I don't own a chainsaw.  I have never had formal training in the proper procedure for felling a tree, so this shouldn't be used as a "How To" photo essay (much like many other posts on our blog).  We try to use common sense to solve problems that arise on an almost daily basis.  Sometimes we are successful and sometimes many times we experience failure, but we're always learning.  We seem to learn more from our failures than our successes and sometimes we fail more than once before getting it right. Ha!

I admitted in the paragraph above the things that I don't possess.  One of the things that my wife would quickly tell you that I do possess is a hard-headed nature that wants to get things done - quickly.  Yesterday one of the items on my to do list was to chop down a tree.  There was one little complication.

As discussed in a post earlier this month, we've had an infestation of red oak borers that is killing some of our water oak trees near the barn.  So far two of them have died and one is dying.  The dead ones are starting to drop limbs.  These trees are all being crowded out by larger pecan trees and this makes them grow at an angle.  The photo below evidences this fact.  You can see that they are growing toward the right. Directly to the right is our freshly planted garden and newly constructed fence. You might remember the new fence was required after the goats broke through the old one and got into the garden.  There was much gnashing of teeth over that, lemme tell you.  Anyway, I don't want the tree to fall over the new fence and into the garden.

If you step backwards and hold a string with a weight on it up to the tree, you can see visually the 'break-over' point at which you need to pull the tree so that you can encourage it to fall the other way. So I grabbed my come-along (cable puller), rope, chains and ax and got to work.

Leaning oaks

I got a tall ladder and tied the rope as high as I dared to climb and attached the come along to the end. Then I anchored the other side to a pecan tree in the opposite direction of the garden.  The pecan tree is sturdy and serves as a support to my wood pile.  A pile that I've stacked and re-stacked more times than you can count.  The goats keep climbing on top and I've conceded and accepted defeat in having neatly stacked wood.  I now just have a wood pile, but I digress.

I began pulling on the come along, ratcheting until the tree no longer had a lean. Pleased with the progress, I moved to the next step.

Pulling the tree straight

I took my old faithful ax and began to chop a big notch in the direction that I would like the tree to fall.  I wanted it to be a big notch so that when it hinges over, it will topple completely and not just close the gap.  I cut about 1/3 of the way through it and then moved to the next step.

How much wood does a wood chuck chuck?

I moved back to the come along and pulled and pulled and pulled.  Can you notice that the tree is now leaning away from the garden, whereas it was leaning toward the garden?  Progress!  At one point, I ran out of cable, so I chained the two trees together, loosened the come along to get more slack, and reattached it.  Then I unchained the two trees and began tightening the come along again. (That's why you see the chain hanging from the tree I'm chopping on.)  Once I had it tightened up I moved to the next order of business.

Everyone needs somebody to lean on

It is time for the tree to come down!  I had Benjamin move the dog a safe distance away and I ensured that the chickens were well clear of the 'fall zone.'  Then I took my ax and began to cut downward on the backside of the tree opposite the notch. Immediately the tree weakened and I was able to yell, "Timber!!!"  The tree fell, missing the fence by the skin of my teeth.

On the ground, successfully

Tomorrow after work, I'll limb out the tree and drag the limbs to the burn pile.  I'll borrow a chainsaw and cut up the tree for firewood.  Then I'll chop the stump until it is either flush with the ground or gone.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it fall, does it make a sound?  Hmmm...

I always like to assess the situation and determine how to do it better next time. There are at least two things that I think I could have done differently.  First, the next time I do this, I won't do it by myself, but will get some help.  Secondly, I'll pull the come-along tighter and will continue pulling it as the tree starts to lean more in order to keep the tension on it so that it falls exactly where I want it to.  It didn't fall on the fence or in the garden, but it was a little too close for comfort.

Here's the next tree:  It is bigger around...

Next in line

And taller..

Tall timber

I really need the services of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox for this next job!

Image Credit

A Tough Row to Hoe

Last week Tricia made Potato Latkes for supper one night.  Potato Latkes are shredded potatoes, seasoned and with flour, egg, onions, and garlic.  Think of a crab cake but minus the crab.  They are so delicious, they make me want to holler.  I went and looked in our 'root cellar' to check on our inventory of potatoes remaining from the Spring harvest.  I like potatoes.  Potatoes are a simple, ordinary crop. Nothing fancy about 'em.  They'll sure sustain you, though.

We don't really have a cellar.  We live in Louisiana and if we dug a hole it would promptly fill with water. I think Jennings is at an elevation of 23 feet.  We do store our potatoes in the next best thing - our mud room.  It stays dark in there and there is a dedicated air conditioning vent that keeps the little room dark and cool - a perfect spot for storing potatoes.  We had a nice crop of potatoes this year.  It was our best crop yet.  We filled the two crates below with potatoes when we harvested back in May and here is what's left. We sorted them into the medium to large size:

The bottom of the barrel

And then the smaller sized ones:  If you look closely, you can see that many of the potatoes have 'eyes' that are starting to grow.

Almost gone!

You can see that our inventory is almost gone!  What are we going to do?  Well, we'll either buy some at the store OR maybe we could plant a Fall crop of potatoes.  Let's go with the latter.  I've never planted Fall potatoes, but I like to experiment and try new things.  I checked and saw that the recommended planting dates for our zone is August 15 - September 10th.  Well, I'm 13 days too late!

I was going to pull up a long row, but I don't want to risk losing a bunch of our potatoes if they're not going to make it, so I'm going to hedge my bets and only plant a small 12 foot row of potatoes.  The reason for the September 10th cut off date is undoubtedly to ensure that you harvest your taters prior to the first frost. Potatoes take 90 - 120 days until harvest.  I'll either harvest early, picking only "new potatoes," or I'll experiment with covering the potato plants with hay on nights with a frost.  Let's get going-Daylight's burning.

The old saying, "You've got a tough row to hoe," certainly applied here.  The ground was hard and dry.  I'm planting the potatoes in the yard and I'm using the land where we planted the sweet corn. I'm essentially pulling the two rows together into one and I'll plant down the middle.

A tough row to hoe!

The land here hasn't been amended with organic matter.  I'll work to better the soil over the next several years.  I'll add some organic fertilizer and some top soil for the time being.

Top soil and organic fertilizer

I broadcast the fertilizer on the row and sprinkled some topsoil.  Now I'll take my trusty hoe and work it all in real good, removing weeds and roots as I go.

Amending the soil

I went to the remaining inventory from our Spring potato harvest and selected the potatoes that had the nicest looking eyes.  Some were a little shriveled up, but that's okay.  We aren't eating these. We're going to plant them.

Fall Seed Potatoes from the Spring crop

The difference, I learned, with Fall potatoes is that you don't cut them up with one eye per chunk and allow them to scab over like when you are planting in the Spring. You plant them whole.  This is going to be fast.  Here is a nice seed potato about to go in the ground.  Notice that it still has some dirt on it.  If you're going to store potatoes, don't wash them.  That'll reduce the amount of time that they'll store. These have lasted since May and are still holding strong.  If we were to eat them, we'd simply pull off the sprouted eye.

A nice seed potato ready to grow

I dug a hole in the soft dirt with my hand about 3 inches down and deposited the potato with the sprout facing upward and planted them about 10 inches apart. Then I pulled the soil over them, got the water hose and gave the row a good sprinkling, imitating a rainfall of about 1/2 inches.  I wanted the water to soak down into the soil and wet the potato, signalling it to start growing.  The rule of thumb for estimated yield for potatoes is that you multiply the pounds of potatoes you planted by a factor of 10.  For example, if you planted 3 pounds of potatoes, you should expect to get roughly 30 pounds at harvest.  Obviously, this varies based on soil and growing conditions.

Seed, Dirt, Sunlight, Water.  All the components are there.

Planting potatoes (or any other seed) requires faith.  It is a lesson in delayed gratification.  Oh, we could have taken these seed potatoes and made some potato salad or (our favorite) Crash Hot Potatoes Recipe here!, but instead we're going to forgo that enjoyment and put them in the ground, exercising some faith.  Hopefully, we'll be rewarded for our work and patience and those little potatoes will multiply and replenish our potato bins.  Alternatively, we might not see good results from our labors, but regardless, we'll depend on our Creator.  We'll walk by faith, not by sight and we'll trust Him to provide.

“Peter Marshall, the great evangelical preacher, once said that we need "faith like potatoes" - plain, simple, real faith that will sustain us in our everyday lives. Whenever I pick up a potato I remember those words. That's the kind of faith I want. When we have faith and act on it, God will come through for us, no matter what our circumstances. God is King!” 
― Angus Buchan, Faith Like Potatoes: The Story of a Farmer Who Risked Everything for God

How do chickens bathe?

Today was the first official day of Fall.  Normally in South Louisiana, the seasons are just arbitrary notations on a calendar.  For example, this year the first day of summer was June 21.  I'll give you a hint, though, it often feels like summer LONG before the first day of summer!  I have to tell you, on the first day of Fall, it felt like Fall!  There was a slight north breeze, the humidity was low, and the sky?  The sky was clear - no haze or fog to speak of.  The sunrise this morning was spectacular as the sun peeked above the Cajun prairie.  I was going to eat lunch in my office today, but instead opted to walk around outside.  I'd be lying if I told you that I can't wait to get home this afternoon to work in the garden.

Yesterday afternoon, I was scouting out an area to plant a Fall crop of Irish Potatoes.  I'm about two weeks late right now, but I'm going to give it a try anyway. While I was walking around I looked out in the barnyard and saw the dust flying. Let's go take a closer look to see what's going on!

Rub-a-dub-dub!

It's just our hens taking a bath.  Not in water but in dust.  That's what chickens do. It is odd, I know. When I want to take a bath, it is to get the dust off - not to put more on!  Birds and other animals seem to do this in order to groom themselves.  I watched the chickens closely to see their technique.

First, they get in an area where there is only dirt.  We have an area between the barn and the burn pile where grass doesn't grow.  This results in a dusty place where the chickens like to bathe.  They'll congregate there, using their feet to scratch little holes in the ground.  Then they'll stand up, ruffle their feathers, flap their wings, and wiggle their bodies into the hole, turning sideways, using their feet to windmill the dust onto their backs and heads.  It will create a mini-dust storm.

Then they'll stand up and vigorously shake the dust out of their feathers.  This cleans their feathers and removes any mites, lice, or other small parasites that might be hitchhiking on the birds.  I think the theory is that the dust asphyxiates the parasites.  If you get on "How to raise chicken" websites, they'll all tell you that you must build a dust bath for your birds as it is an important part of their health regimen.  It is quite easy - you make a box and deposit fireplace ashes, road dust, sand and diatomaceous earth into it.  If you build it, they will come.  It is ingrained in their very "chicken-ness."

The Dust-bowl days

If your birds free-range, you really don't need to build a dust bath.  I guarantee you that your birds will build their own!  You'll have numerous indentations like you can see in the photo above that constitutes the 'Chicken Spa.'  Although it is Fall and is getting a little cooler, I think the dust bath provides a secondary benefit. Chickens (and dogs, for that matter) will dig in the dirt and rest in the hole.  I think that laying in the dirt below the surface provides a means of cooling their bodies.  

Despite being humorous for us to watch, chickens dust bathing is a very critical part of their hygiene that aids in their overall health.  As for me?  I'll stick to water baths, thank you very much.

Cicadas (Or locusts) are in the Trees

Right now if you go outside, there is an incessant hum in the surrounding trees.  It is the sound of cicadas, or locusts, as we call them.  The pitch is constant and ever-present.  These things are everywhere flying around and making noise, especially as the sun starts to go down.  After mating the female lays eggs in the bark of trees. Once they hatch, the nymphs drop to the ground and tunnel where they'll live for most of their lives, eating the sap from roots for sustenance.  Here are three of their tunnels in just about a one square foot area.

Cicada burrows

Here's the crazy part.  Their life cycle, according to Wikipedia, can range from 2 to 5 years and they eat the sap from roots.    Amazingly, the North American genus' life cycle ranges from 13 - 17 years! In the nymph's final stage, they'll emerge from the burrow and molt, shedding their shell (or exoskeleton).  You'll see these shells all over the place on fence posts, trees, etc.  Here is a cicada exoskeleton on one of our orange trees.

Just a shell is left behind

Here is an animated presentation from Wikipedia that shows a time lapse of the molt:

Image Credit

Here is a nymph in its final stage that was crawling along the concrete in the garage.

Looking for a place to molt

Here is an adult that has just exited the shell on the fence post by the gate to our pasture.

Free at Last!

The locust will hang there for a while while its wings dry, and then it will fly off, leaving the shell behind.  I read where in some cultures, these locusts, especially the females, are eaten.  No thank you. I'd have to be really, really hungry!

Just hanging out

Locusts do happen to have a vicious predator: The Locust Killer Wasp.  These bad boys are really a frightful thing to watch.  According to This Link it explains that cicada killer wasps grow to an inch and a half long.  They are so much bigger than regular wasps, but they aren't aggressive toward people.  The females dig burrows where they deposit their larvae.  You can spot the burrows by all the dirt piled up by the opening.

Here's the neat part.  The female cicada killers, true to their name, will hunt.  They will sting a cicada and this paralyzes it.  They will attack the locust in a mid air collision.  Then they'll either coast down near their burrow with the cicada in tow or they'll drag it into their burrow where the larvae will feed off of.  Then they'll rise to the surface and continue the cycle.

Image Credit

The cicada killer wasp looks pretty scary!  I hate to think of what her predator might look like!!