Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[1muttsfan]

Lilacs should be pruned after they blossom in the spring, nice because you get to enjoy their spring flower. You can remove up to 1/3 of the stems at one time, so it may take you a few years to correct them completely. Most pruning guides tell you to remove the older stems, but I prefer mine to look more like small trees, so I cut them back to 3-5 main stems - like the ones on Mackinac Island

 

[Monstro]

Good question and no it's not off-topic.  We discuss everything from chooks to chinooks on here - it's a social thread.  Anything (within reason) is on-topic.  Anyway, maybe RaZ will have something to say on the matter.  All I know is I prune dead of winter on my grapes, apples, and blueberries. I have had great luck digging up our purple and white lilac runners that pop up and moving them.  Very hardy if I can do it, lol!  We need to prune our old large lilac bushes as well.  

Good to know on the grapes. Theirs a mangled pile of those too. I'll look up info on them also.

 

[SillyChicken]

lol, so if I have it on the property line, and it's not facing them, how could the neighbor possibly see the front to warrant a fence?

on a side note, if I was that turkey farmer I'd be HOT over the poisoning/loss of my birds, poor things.

If anyone is interested in planting native plants, grasses, bushes and trees, plus fruit trees, many counties have plant sales. Washtenaw county has put out their conservation order forms. http://www.washtenawcd.org/ps/treeplantsale.php I try to get a few trees from them or Jackson co. You can get seedlings for example, 100 white pine seedlings for $43. between 1 and 4 yrs old. This year we're going to get sugar maple, Hazel nut, BH Spruce and some peach and cherry trees. They also have rain barrels and compost barrels and a decent price if you need something like that. It takes a while for the trees to establish themselves. We put a barrel in our mule and run a hose from that to water our trees we can just drive by and shoot water on them. (you don't have to be in the county, but I go with the two I'm always in. here is the Washtenaw co order form: http://www.washtenawcd.org/ps/s15order.pdf
Jackson co.. Prices vary
http://www.jacksoncd.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/2015-catalog-draft-21.pdf

 

[birdman55]

just stopping in to say hi...hope everyones day is going great...just done worming the pheasants for a second time...chickens get it tomorrow....and that's only half the birds...man that takes a long time to do...cant wait for it to be done

 

[RaZ]

on a side note, if I was that turkey farmer I'd be HOT over the poisoning/loss of my birds, poor things.

It wasn't a total loss. They ended up at the market. Just in time for Thanksgiving, eh.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Are you sure? Remember the turkey farm down the road from me that was shut down?

Eta if you remember fda was banging on doors in a certain area.... hm. Probably still the virus story but who knows. Not like they will let us know, they didn't even release the feed mills name so we know if our small places were affected.

 

[fuzzybutt love]

Nevermind. Re-read your previous post.... so it looks like a worker dumped it in the wrong stuff maybe. Gross. Now i am not even sure of eating local meats.

 

[Trefoil]

I've got 4 chicks and 13 eggs to go. This is only day 19, so they've got time, some were just too impatient. Some are supposed to be paint silkies (only 1 of them so far) Some araucana (1), and 3 of my ameraucanas(2). But they were ebay eggs except for my 3 and the "araucanas" look an awful lot like my ameraucana eggs except they're really long. I was shocked at how small the silkie eggs were, my 2 silkies' eggs are almost the same size as my australorp eggs. One of my "ameraucana" eggs that hatched has feathery feet, so the hen must have skipped out on her rooster & got cozy with one of my bachelor cochins. I guess it doesn't work so well free ranging during the day. As cold as it was and they were, I didn't think my eggs would hatch. Although hatching wise, this seems to be the best time to ship eggs. I'm going to be so glad I did this next month when I still have all these chicks in the house. Not

 

[RaZ]

Well I went a did it.
I bought a flock of sheep.


I'm not sure how many there are.
I tried to count them but fell asleep.

 

[bigmrg74]

So, who wants to start a pool on how soon Garden City has an anti-sheep ordnance on the books??