Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[jvls1942]

Wet Morning here....yep, we have the Washington Hawthorne here. Mine only spread from fruit that goes to seed. It is super hard wood and a very slow grower that turns out to be beautiful specimens that I actually promote here. They get a huge crown and can be trimmed on the bottom...the turkeys love them. I'll try to remember to take a pick of one and post it when jennie is around. Suzie cut the lawn yesterday and I replanted the eaten plants.

Have fun...bigz

OK then, what we have as those spiny tree/weeds are definitely not hawthorns..
Now, what are they ?? LOL

 

[Celtic Chick]

Wow guess what I heard about swamp land was wrong then. We have never seen anything but wild turkeys, few hawk and some Eagles, owls that sort of thing. I have my girls in a tractor coop so they do not free range, so maybe that is why I do not have a problem...besides if anything was in the yard, our three dogs would put up a fuss.

Predators love all sorts of watersheds. It is where their victims come to drink. Raccoons, weasels & mink are some ruthless creatures that love to hang out around the water. If I were you, I would cover the bottom of your tractor with some hardware cloth to prevent them from tunneling under. It will also help to prevent future injuries. Raccoons will also enter from the nest boxes.

We have some Washington hawthorns here too but they don't sucker. Might be a different variety though. We have no shortage of those darn buckthorns down here. Now those are invasive! They pop up everywhere. They are listed on the DNRs website for one of the top invasive species in the lower part of the state. They do not have obvious flowers & have an almost black fruit. Every year we have to dig at least 20 of them out just from around the house.

Crabapples sucker too but I don't think any of them produce thorns? Can anyone take a closeup pic of the leaves?

 

[jvls1942]

Quote: describe your buckthorns.. they sound kinda like the weeds we have..

eta; I just looked up buckthorn,, not what we have either..
what we have has stubby sharp pickers even on the trunks.
the only way to get rid of it is to dig them up bay the roots and burn everything..
seems like if you break off a root, the remaining piece will go on to sprout..

 

[Celtic Chick]

describe your buckthorns.. they sound kinda like the weeds we have..

eta; I just looked up buckthorn,, not what we have either..
what we have has stubby sharp pickers even on the trunks.
the only way to get rid of it is to dig them up bay the roots and burn everything..
seems like if you break off a root, the remaining piece will go on to sprout..

The thorns on the buckthorn are not noticeable unless you look closely, and no pickers on the trunk.







I sure hope they are not up by you. They are nasty spreading menaces. We have been trying to eradicate them from our yard but a lot of good that does when the neighbor lets his "yard" go "natural".

 

[CheesePoultry]

Well, this weekend is "war on groundhogs" as declared by my hubby. I asked him if I played the Kenny Loggins song from Caddyshack, would that help inspire him?

He's had a busy morning buying flowering plants for our hanging baskets and pots around the house. Sounds like this week will be a good time to get them planted. If we have to bring them inside a day or two next week it won't be difficult to do.

Hubs has repaired a few of the movable pens and hopes to rehouse the larger turkeys that are ready to go out. I guess it'll be a poultry do si do... these birds here, those birds there, round about we go! The older kids will help with that and get everything all set up.

Still waiting for my middle daughter's rabbits to be ready for pick up. She's decided she doesn't want to be in poultry but would rather have rabbits for her 4-H project. So our zoo continues to expand. Yikes!

Other than that, I have Friday afternoons off work all summer (summer hours), so we'll have a chance to pick up the kids from school together and do the grocery shopping. Tomorrow is a full and busy day - lots of work to do and a ton of laundry. If I'm lucky I'll be able to hang the sheets outside to dry. LOVE the smell of air dried sheets! And goes way faster than putting them in the dryer. We live close enough to Lake Michigan and are on a slight rise that we have a near constant breeze/wind. Makes line drying laundry very efficient!

I don't know if I'll get online over the weekend much, so I'll wish all of you a great weekend now. The weather here will be warm and maybe wet, but hopefully between the raindrops we can all get some outside work done!

Angela

 

[bigzio]

We also have a ton of buckthorn here, and Jim it sounds to me like you are describing prickly ash...and we have a ton of that here too.

bigz

 

[glarnerchicks]

Lots of plant IDing going on -- interesting stuff!

When we bought our house here, we found that it included a vast variety of things in our gardens....probably two dozen varieties of tulips and daffodils, bleeding heart, hosta, peonies, lily of the valley, columbine, lupine, raspberries (red and golden), lilac, ornamental cherry, a giant apple tree, irises, lilies, roses, magnolia, and more that I don't know! I am NOT a gardener...mint and lavender are about all I manage...

I have a newbie chicken question....is it really bad to 'swap' birds? I hear everyone saying they get new birds all the time, do you all really follow the suggested quarantine process and such?

We are only allowed 5 chickens, and I am really wishing that more breeds would have been available. I have three Rhode Island Reds, and I would love to swap two of them (they're nice, friendly, healthy birds -- hatched 1/26) for birds of two other breeds. Is this really not a good idea, or should I try looking?

 

[Celtic Chick]

Hey there Mel. Where ya been? We missed you.

If you care at all about the health of your current flock, you would quarantine for 30 days. And even that is no guarantee that the new birds won't get your girls sick or vise versa. Healthy looking birds can carry illnesses that other birds are not immune to.

When you add new birds to your flock, you will also have to deal with fighting until a new pecking order can be established.

 

[Firstchic]

The thorns on the buckthorn are not noticeable unless you look closely, and no pickers on the trunk.







I sure hope they are not up by you. They are nasty spreading menaces. We have been trying to eradicate them from our yard but a lot of good that does when the neighbor lets his "yard" go "natural".

Nope, this does not look like the tree. Someone asked me about the leaves, There are none. In the spring the buds come on the branches and blossom out. I see no leave, just a bunch of flowers.

 

[Firstchic]

Lots of plant IDing going on -- interesting stuff!

When we bought our house here, we found that it included a vast variety of things in our gardens....probably two dozen varieties of tulips and daffodils, bleeding heart, hosta, peonies, lily of the valley, columbine, lupine, raspberries (red and golden), lilac, ornamental cherry, a giant apple tree, irises, lilies, roses, magnolia, and more that I don't know! I am NOT a gardener...mint and lavender are about all I manage...

I have a newbie chicken question....is it really bad to 'swap' birds? I hear everyone saying they get new birds all the time, do you all really follow the suggested quarantine process and such?

We are only allowed 5 chickens, and I am really wishing that more breeds would have been available. I have three Rhode Island Reds, and I would love to swap two of them (they're nice, friendly, healthy birds -- hatched 1/26) for birds of two other breeds. Is this really not a good idea, or should I try looking?

TEEHEEHEE: I have a couple of production Red and Blacks I would swap in a heartbeat for 2 RIR......just kidding.....if you have been reading my post-u understand.