Baby rabbit runt

here are some updated animal pictures. Look how chunky the goats are! Their due date starts July 22nd. That's the 146th day from the first time they met the buck. Hopefully they are pregnant, not just fat, haha.

White baby

Fat sugar

Juggy peeing

Juggy close up

Sugar and juggy

Chicken eyes

Garden killer

this rabbit has killed every seedling and has set up camp in my raised bed. And what's worse is I can't collect his poo. That's the whole reason I have rabbits! Rabbit poo is the best manure because it doesn't have to be composted and can go straight onto the plant without burning anything. It's especily good for small scale urban farms because rabbits take so little space and can pretty much live off of kitchen scraps and some weeds. Chicken manure has to be composted because it has so much nitrogen. Goat poo is really good, but it's hard to collect. So this rabbit is really getting a free ride. I'll catch him when his guard is down. He is so fast and smart. Rabbis definately have more personality than people think...

Plenitude

Here is the new book we're reading! It's Plenitude by Juliet Schor. It's about disengaging from the current economic model, business as usual. Removing the middle man, growing your own food, etc. Check out her blog http://www.julietschor.org/2010/05/welcome-to-plenitude/. I swear you'll be buying for first herd of chickens after you read it, and maybe a goat or too...

I drink my coffee and hide

There is battle I fight every morning between coffee and farm. Let's not kid ourselves, the farm always wins. When I wake up in the morning I sneak downstairs and try to start the coffee maker before the animals know I'm awake. They look in the windows! If I peak out the upstairs window I get the stink eye from a goat. And in the morning if they hear anything inside the house they all start howling. The ducks are the worst. They quack and chirp all morning anyways, but they get crazy if they see movement in the window. When I didn't have the porch blocked off they would wait at the back door. And before we put up the goat fence the goats would rake the door with their hooves and it sounded like a human was knocking to come in. They also used to stand up in the window and beg for kitchen scraps.
So in the morning I sneak into the kitchen trying to hide from the animals to make coffee before I start my chores outside. Because once I'm outside I can't just do it half way. If I just feed the ducks the goats will yell, or if I feed just the ducks and goats the chickens will scream. And once I go through all that it'd just be mean to not feed the rabbits because they Can't speak. That's a lot to do at 6:30 in the morning without coffee. It takes a good 45 minutes to get everyone taken care of with food, fresh water, hay, veggies, pregnancy supplements for the goats, frozen water bottles for the bunnies. I love to do it all, but I'd love it more if they'd let me have coffee first...

Checking in part II

the bees were so productive in this first month that we were able to harvest! They filled the lower part of the hive and were moving upwards. The extra honeycomb had to be removed to put the other box on top. So we enjoyed the first fruits of our labor really early. I've been rationing it out in 2oz baby food containers. It isn't honey yet, it's flower nectar. The comb smelled like flowers when we took it out.

This is the extra comb and the queen box

This would look super fancy without that piece of hay on the plate

Checking in

It's been a month with the bees and it's time to add the deep hive and to make sure the queen has gotten out of her box. Since their numbers are growing rapidly the deep hive will give them more space so they don't swarm. We are mainly looking for a capped brood meaning the queen is laying eggs and covers them with wax. And also to make sure there are no queen cells because that's a sign they are about to swarm because of over crowding.

...like rabbits

Rabbits get pregnant...while they are pregnant. I went outside to do the evening rounds of food and guess what I found in the rabbit hutch...more baby rabbits!!! WTF! So I had to scramble and get the older rabbit babies out, luckily they had already weaned themselves and they are old enough to be separated from the mother. So we have 5 more bunnies. She must have gotten pregnant the day before she gave birth to the other ones because the first batch are 5 weeks old on monday. That poor rabbit! She hasnt had contact with a male in over a month! I really feel like these were immaculately conceived. Unless rabbits throw semen...nasty. i'm putting the first batch of babies up for sale as soon as I get some cute pictures of them, so I could use that money to get more wood for the garden.
Speaking of the garden, that big black girl rabbit keeps escaping and eating my seedlings. The garden is ruined!! I have to start from scratch! And she keeps getting out of everything I put her in. I have to solve this problem soon or I'll miss this planting season.

So much to do

So we have permission to farm on the empty lot next door. Now is crunch time. I have the dirt to fill the beds delivered already, I have the wood to build the beds. All that is left to get is the manure. I have to sit and wait for my special friend from the feed store to come through, since she has a truck and poo connections. Hopefully this week I'll have everything pulled together and be able to start building.

In the meantime I've built another bunny house, chicken wired the garden to keep the ducks from trampling the seedlings, a little too late though so I have to start that all over again. Acquired some pine bark for the new garden. Started new seedlings for the community garden which I have to take over today and transplant so I dont look neglectful compared to everyone else's beds.

Here's a lis of things still left to do:
tie up tomato plants
start more seedlings
mow the lot
trim goat hooves
built big duck shelter
wean the rabbit babies slowly
beehive maintenance, check queen

spray pear tree with pepper mixture to get rid of squirrels
Last year every single pear was eaten! Three pear trees and no pears! Not this year! We've hung cd's, tied fake owls up, and now we are going to make a pepper mixture to spray them. Hopefully this will work.