Hedgerow

click image to enlarge

 

Yup.  A hedgerow of ancient and fragrant lilacs interspersed with three ancestral apple trees.

You can't really get a feel for it in this picture as it is an iPhone panorama format but that squat hill covers the buried foundation of the original farmstead home that stood on this spot.  Built in the late 1800s the original house was dismantled before we purchased the property - some guy from Chicago wanted the logs.  

One of the previous Belgian settlers likely planted the lilacs for spring color and their fragrance along with the three apple trees of unknown variety.  The apple trees don't get the proper care they probably deserve although they continue to bear fruit.  The tart apples make a terrific pie filling and apple sauce.

Over the years the lilacs have grown into a medieval and impenetrable hedgerow.  Good nesting habitat for the local songbirds.