"Wild" Buff Orpingtons

Today we saw a flock of "wild" (ha!) Buff Orpingtons scavenging in our neighbor's yard. There is a deep gulley, thankfully, between my northern neighbors' yard and Nordmark. They live in the eastern suburbs of Detroit and do not come up often. The Orpingtons belong to Jeff and Sharon, who live north of those immediate northern neighbors, and who have shared the Orpingtons' eggs with me. Fresh eggs. Yummy. When I first started coming up to my property, the Orpingtons would greet me and browse on extra doughnuts (yes, really) from Lakeport that I brought up for the builders. That seems like years ago now but it wasn't.

 

 

There were some fearsome predators who warned me about the invading poultry and were dying to get at them.

Bear, Korpur, Kata

Mike and Deb shared some photos of a great looking hen house with me before I moved. One day I'd like something similar to that house for a flock of Icelandic chickens. Daydreaming?!

TJ came yesterday and worked on the Generac for about three hours before finally giving up. He says he found the problem and will come back next week to remove a part and install a new replacement. Makes me a little nervous, ain't it?

That gave me an opportunity to work on cleaning out some scrub willow bushes on a "little creek" near the Generac leading to my bluff. While doing that I discovered about seven very small, about four or five inches tall and very scraggly, white cedars (arbor vitae) and later transplanted them to Nordmark. White cedars are endangered, surprisingly, because the over populated deer feed on seedlings in the winter and destroy them so that the adult trees cannot repopulate. Those small arbor vitae had been browsed by deer where they were trying to grow. Nordmark, their new home, is protected from deer by the wild predators some of which are in the above photo. There was also a small evergreen. (White spruce or balsam? - I don't yet know how to tell the difference between evergreens but I'll figure it out eventually.) I also moved that to Nordmark. It will be several years before any of the few dozen evergreens of assorted species that I've transplanted into Nordmark get large enough to serve as a screen and as a shield from the winds from Lake Huron. I will enjoy watching them grow and one day a new owner will truly enjoy Nordmark. Meanwhile I get the pleasure of watching them grow.

Two hazelnut bushes arrived and were planted by the pole barn parking 'lot' near three Spirea and three lilacs planted last spring. Such plans! Why not? Indeed. Annette and Fred would understand.

From a book ("Nora Webster") I've just started reading - I'm going to edit - - - - with apologies to author Colm Toibin.

"Wait until you're old - then you'll know. It's the mixture of being content with even the smallest thing - - - - - I don't know what it is. I'm not even tired a lot of the time, and all the same I'm half exhausted if I even stand up."

Well, I'm not there quite yet but some of that fits.