It is NOT easy to find a housesitter when you have 29 animals to take care of. On the one hand, regular pet sitters are often overwhelmed by those numbers, and don’t wish to deal with the issues that livestock type animals can bring. On the other hand, farm sitters can charge too much, and… Read More Finding a housesitter
YEEEEAAAAHHHH! My first live litter of baby rabbits since moving to Oregon. Finally! Mom is a first-time mom, so I’m trying to keep my hopes under control. First-time moms often don’t know how to handle having kits. But she pulled fur! Kits were kindled on the wire, but I found them fast enough and all… Read More Baby rabbits!!!
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
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!
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
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
Rabbits are cool, but there are definately some things I wish I had understood better before getting mine. I intentionally breed my rabbits for wool and meat production, so some of what I have to say may not apply to everyone or to all reasons for having rabbits. But I hope this list helps someone!… Read More 5 things no one told me about rabbits
If there is one thing you have to deal with on a mini-farm, it’s poop. Dog poop needs to be picked up from the yard – if you don’t want to end up skating on your tush after stepping on it. Cat poop needs to be scooped from boxes before the cats throw it out… Read More Poop!
Ranting About Rectangles 