Barn chores went fast because #4 came out to feed everyone while I broke ice out of and refilled water bowls. I noticed that Servine is looking thin, so I asked her to give him an extra scoop of food. When I walked by his cage when I was done (I always re-check everyone before I leave the barn to make sure nobody got forgotten), he was sitting in the corner of his cage, his food dish upside down. Silly rabbit spilled his food, but as I reached in to turn the food dish right side up, it moved! Here he had dipped his chest fur in his water bowl and then gone back to eating, and had managed to freeze his fur to the metal food bowl. He's slightly less furry now, but I replaced his metal bowl with a stainless steel bowl that won't be as easy to stick to. I gave him a full refill (plus a scoop) to make sure he had enough. I'm sure the chickens will take care of the pellets he spilled under his cage.
We got five eggs today. No blues, and no dark browns. There was one duck egg but it was frozen and cracked, so I tossed it in the compost pile.
This evening we had dinner at my parents' house. We brought Moose along to play with their bloodhound, Daisy. They're both pretty decent sized dogs, and when they get to playing, they're all over the place. It'll be nicer I think in the summer when they can play outside in the sun when it's warm. Right now Daisy can only go outside for a few minutes at a time before she gets too cold. Moose is used to being outside for 35-45 minutes at a time while I'm doing barn chores (as long as it's not too cold, then he stays inside).
All together, a wonderful day. I'm tired and ready for bed, so this is a short blog for today.
Tomorrow kids go back to school and, depending on how he's feeling, perhaps #5 and I can get started with winter sowing. He loves to look through seed catalogs and pick out the photos of things he wants to try planting. He must think it's magical that so often I have the varieties he points out. I know he really wants to grow a lot of fruits and berries. Perhaps we can get some blueberries, goji berries, apple trees, and such started. He wants to do strawberries, but I have never had much luck with them winter sowing. The first year we got Yellow Wonder and White Soul strawberries to germinate, but since then I've had complete failures in all strawberry jugs (and I've sown them every year). Maybe we could set up a seed starter tray indoors and try for some strawberries inside.