I took a pair of electric clippers to the rabbits today! Rabbits are NOT easy to raise, especially angoras. The grooming needs of seven long-haired rabbits got away from me in the last month, and it just isn’t right to let them get tangles or mats. So in spite of my goal to hand-pluck their… Read More Bare butted bunnies
One thing I disliked about working in the world of rectangles was that regardless of the season, the work was always the same. Get up, get dressed, go to work, work for 8 hours, go home. Hope for good weather on the weekends so you could do your yard work and play a little. It… Read More Whether weather allows…
My first predator. Yuck! Thankfully it’s a small one – at least for right now. Small enough to fit inside my shoe, even. But it was inside the chicken run, and that isn’t an appropriate place for it! Opossums are omnivores. They’ll eat chicken feed and chickens. They’ll eat your garbage, dig through your compost pile,… Read More Opossum in with the chickens!
Today was a big day for the chickens. They’re six weeks old now, so we let them out of the brooder and into the whole run area. No more 8×4 walled and roofed enclosure, now they have a 12×12 fenced area, with just the roof left over the smaller brooder so they can get out… Read More Chicks are out of the brooder!
Working on a backyard farm is very different from working in an office. Yes, I have ditched being surrounded by rectangles in favor of being surrounded by nature. But in an office the most injured I ever got was the occasional paper cut or sore toes from wearing fancy shoes. On the homestead, the possible… Read More 6 things I learned this week about how to live on a homestead
One of the things that fits very nicely into my new office-less lifestyle is volunteering. I enjoy volunteering. There’s something about stepping up and doing a job for someone who needs it, who has no means to pay you back, that feels good. I guess it’s one of the things that proves to myself that… Read More I only feel old on Thursdays
My parents have been pretty cool about this homestead/mini-farm thing. A little bit of horror from my mother asking “you DO that?” and some double-checking that we’re not on the verge of starvation out here so far away from them, they’re pretty fine with it. They enjoyed seeing a litter of rabbit kits last year,… Read More Thinking about my ancestors
Happy birthday to me! Having a wonderful day. The clouds even moved away and aren’t blocking the sun anymore. It’s a SUNNY day in Oregon! Had a wonderful lunch with a friend and her two children – finished off by a chocolate sundae. Yum! On the way home, the car died. Completely. At one of… Read More It’s my birthday!
A few days ago I started a grand snail experiment. I gathered them, put them in housing (a plastic tote with soil, greenery, food, etc) in an attempt to get them to breed so I had a continuous source of protein for my chickens to eat. It sounded great, I found instructions online from others… Read More Don’t believe everything you read on the internet
My husband (yes, bloggers can be married!) had one whole margarita and blamed it for his inability to hold his camera still an hour later. But that’s not what this post is about. This post is about SNAILS. You can see a tiny fraction of the snails that hang out on my house if you… Read More Learning about garden pests – and how to make them into benefits
Ranting About Rectangles 