One Chick, and Backdoor Flowers

I have fond memories of visiting with Brandon's mother while we created the perfect chicken haven from bits and pieces we scavenged from the old farm house and out buildings.  My brother gave us the small trailer that the mobile chicken coop is built on, and although it has moved from place to place, it mostly lives in the shade by the tree line.  The mobile coop sometimes gets criticized for it's scrappy appearance, but it safely housed my first flock, guinea keets, several batches of meat birds, and even a turkey!  

It's the perfect place to put a broody hen on her nest of eggs.  

This is the little hen that spent so much time with Rufus the donkey.  She was determined to sit on a clutch of eggs, so I waited until after dark, moved her and seven eggs to the dog crate, and placed it in the mobile coop on the thick bed of old hay and dried droppings from the last time the flock used the coop.  

She was patient for three weeks, and now she has a chick!  Just one, but she seems content to scratch in the bedding and cluck at her tiny chick.  I haven't been able to get very close to the chick yet, but when I told Brandon I thought it seemed like a rooster, he asked "Why, does it act cocky?" Ha!  Here's a link to a short youtube of this hen and her little one searching for tasty bits in the hay - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPFQIujQIhQ 

We've been enjoying the aroma of the milkweed blossoms near the back door.  

The floral aroma is very strong right now, and the insects are loving the nectar.  

We forgive the elderberry shrub for crowding the door because it has such gigantic flower clusters! 

The flowers are very tiny, and have a delicate aroma compared to the powerful milkweed scent.  

The petals are beginning to drop - it won't be long until there are elderberries!