Listeria has claimed the lives of more than half my rabbits. A nasty disease, it can kill within 48 hours of the first symptoms. The cure is massively massive doses of antibiotics, and only works in a fraction of infected animals. It works so quickly that in the first two rabbits to succumb to it,… Read More Listeria sucks! A bad word for a bad disease.
I was never good at math. The times tables baffle me. I know it’s just straight memorization, but all those repetitive numbers just get jumbled in my head. I can usually do one or two problems, but give me one of those speed tests where you have to solve 100 problems in a set amount… Read More Algebra in farming
Brrrr! It’s cold here today! There is a storm warning, and the sheen of white on the ground isn’t frost, it’s ice! Of course, it’s winter and all to be expected. But winter brings more trouble to a farm than just a low thermometer. Bedding for animals becomes necessary. Rabbits live on wire floors which become… Read More The troubles with winter
The dream was to raise Angora rabbits, pluck their wool, spin it into yarn, and sell it. And rake in the money. After all, Angora fur sells for $6 – $8 per ounce! I stumbled across a purebred French Angora doe for $30. She quickly produced an equally purebred litter of eight kits. I fought… Read More Even best laid plans must have room to change
A friend of mine recently said that reading my blog makes her tired because of all the things I do. So today, I think I’ll give her a good reason to go to bed early! Here is what today is like in my life… When I got up this morning, my dear husband had already… Read More A day in my life
It feels soooo good to be home. I really enjoyed the Philippines, and expect to go back at some point. But home is home. We left Manila at 9:30 am on Tuesday, and landed at San Francisco at 9:30 am on Tuesday. Weird. Had a 4 hour layover, so one of my husband’s relatives who lives… Read More We’re home! Update on animals, sunburn, sea snakes, and more
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
I have been wondering about this a lot lately. Most of my self-sufficiency attempts are working well. I had no problem adding chickens to my lifestyle. Doing a compost heap worked almost textbook perfectly. The mealworm farm produced lots of bugs for the chickens to eat. Even after moving from Colorado to Oregon and not… Read More When to throw in the towel?
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!
Today’s rant about rectangles is in honor of my new rabbit. I have two brand new rabbits – so new they don’t have names yet. One is a Californian doe, about 2 years old. The other is probably an American Chinchilla Rabbit doe, also aged about 2 years. They are accustomed to being together, so… Read More She got her head stuck!
