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Momma Chuck is bringing her young ones out from under the barn on daily foraging trips.
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So naturally I sit on the barn porch and entice them with apple chunks.
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One brave little fella gets closer than the rest.
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He’s so sweet!
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Yes, they’re flower munching machines…
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But they’re also too cute to stay angry at for long.
💕
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My first baby chucker count was off by two. There are five baby chuckers and my flower gardens are doomed.
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I try to make friends by sitting on the barn porch and giving them apples.
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I do this so they’ll leave my carefully tended blooms alone.
Sometimes it works, other times I’m left with a bed of bare twigs.
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It seems there’s always one brave little fella in every litter… the one who edges closer and checks me out more thoroughly.
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Yes, they munch my flowers.
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But damn, they’re cute.
❤️
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Lilacs.
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From a scent perspective they’re hard to beat.
We have two giant bushes on the edge of our property that were planted by the original owners in the mid seventies.
One is dark purple.
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One is white.
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So of course my favorite color is the pale lavender that we didn’t have.
But my girlfriend did and about ten years ago she gave me some of hers.
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That’s it in the foreground next to our old ones.
Alive, but not in any hurry to grow.
At this rate I’ll be dead before it blooms…
🥴
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It’s been a long time coming but my favorite apple tree by the road is in full bloom.
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Technically it’s a weird variety of crabapple that doesn’t fruit.
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But who needs bitter fruit when you have this preponderance of fragrant blooms?
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The scent is pure heaven.
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But be careful sniffing..
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The bees love it as well.
🐝
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We had a new guest at Casa River yesterday.
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Running up and down the driveway at lightning speed.
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They’re cute little fellows we rarely see on our property.
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A shorebird who often nests alongside fields..
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The killdeer emits a shrill shriek of a call and is famous for pretending to have a broken wing and luring predators away from its nest with its supposed injury.
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Cute.
And smart.
Not to mention fast.
❤️
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Why eat standing up…
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When lying down works just as well.
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😊
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Working with our contractor has ended for now but will resume in a week or two. And God forbid my retired husband should enjoy himself and do something fun. No…
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He’s decided to lay perforated drainage pipe.
You know, the one I told him to lay last year when he installed that drainage box.
Ever since we had the driveway redone last year water has been funneling down to our kitchen landing/porch and in heavy rain we step outside to a river.
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The catch basin was a good idea, but the husband poo poo’d the extra effort involved in laying pipe saying it wasn’t necessary.
Guess what?
It was.
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So today…
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Trench work began.
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With some help from his cousin.
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Rock and clay don’t make it easy.
🥴
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Lord Dudley Mountcatten is an interactive television watcher.
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Especially when it’s a Nature documentary on birds of prey.
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Summer is coming.
You’re welcome.
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It’s been a weird, cold and wet spring. We still have temperatures dropping to 40 so while the grass is a stunning vibrant green…
Most of the trees haven’t leafed out yet.
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Not that His Lordship cares, there are still mice to hunt.
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The Orioles are still here and eating jars of grape jelly faster than I can buy them. They’re beautiful and hungry.
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A bluebird, just because.
💕
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Our resident fox is a beauty.
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Healthy, bright eyed and judging from this photo?
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Possibly a momma.
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Who likes to lie down while eating.
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😊
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One.
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Two.
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Three.
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Four.
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Five.
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Six.
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Six Baltimore Orioles stopping by for a brief time on their way to northern breeding grounds.
Put out oranges and grape jelly the first time you see one… then sit back and enjoy the bright orange show.
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River's world..... 