We are starting to save up for a bunny barn upgrade. I want to move them into a set up with a steel roof, steel framework, and wooden sides before winter comes. I think the upgrade will definitely help with keeping bunnies better insulated over winter, and the wood walls will be removable to allow summer breezes in to help keep bunnies cool in warm weather. Unfortunately, the project is going to cost somewhere in the $900-$1000+ range, so I'm hoping I can sell enough bunnies and other stuff to make it happen. Check out Amanda's Finds & Things for links to our shops on Amazon, eBay, RedBubble, and Bonanza. Every little bit helps!
Today I finished planting the peppers into the in-ground garden, transplanted the winter sown basil, garlic chives, and white bunching onions into plastic plant pots, put away the winter sowing containers, and managed to snap a photo of the back garden area. Along the side of the garage you can see the tire and wooden potato towers. The table holds the pots with the strawberries (the post broke for the strawberry tower), and #2's clearance lavender plant. It sits over a cement piece we found while digging the yard up last year (no idea what it is or why it's there, but it's shallow enough we can't plant anything over it and it's big enough we can't pull it up). The right side of the garden looks so empty right now, but it will fill out. The first row is five mystery watermelon plants, followed by six rows of tomatoes (39 plants), and then two and a half rows of peppers with one basil plant in the half row. The two remaining winter sown containers off in the back there are the eggplant and Brussels sprouts that didn't make it into the side garden along the garage. I think they will probably end up in that half row with the basil. I still plan on putting corn in the far back space that's left over. Penelope has been an excellent mom, her kits are fat and wiggly. There's a nice array of colors in this litter. Four harlequins, each in a different shade, a couple broken tri-colors, two broken yellows, and one broken odd color (opal? blue?). I look forward to seeing how these ones turn out. And right on time, Elsa delivered her litter this morning. Seven little cuties in the nest box. There are some new colors in this litter as well, including two dark almost chocolate brown babies that look to be otter marked, at least one harlequin, and at least one broken spotted baby. So far she's been a good mom and has been hanging out in the nest box with her babies all day. Ansen, Anna, Black Beard, and Bangarang are all set to leave to their new homes tomorrow after Tony gets off work.
We are starting to save up for a bunny barn upgrade. I want to move them into a set up with a steel roof, steel framework, and wooden sides before winter comes. I think the upgrade will definitely help with keeping bunnies better insulated over winter, and the wood walls will be removable to allow summer breezes in to help keep bunnies cool in warm weather. Unfortunately, the project is going to cost somewhere in the $900-$1000+ range, so I'm hoping I can sell enough bunnies and other stuff to make it happen. Check out Amanda's Finds & Things for links to our shops on Amazon, eBay, RedBubble, and Bonanza. Every little bit helps! Elsa is due tomorrow. Today she built a very plush nest of fur. Unfortunately, she decided to pull all of her nest fur from her sides and legs instead of her belly - so now she looks like she has mange. What a silly rabbit. I hope she's a good mom. The raspberry bushes in the back tulip garden are ripening faster than the ones up front. I was curious to see if these new bushes were going to be red raspberries or black raspberries. They'll be black raspberries, just like the ones up front. We can never have too many black raspberries (they're so good), so I'm pleased with this. Yesterday I planted the "discount watermelon" plants, and today one of them blossomed! Not wasting any time at all! They're such tiny plants, I question what kind of fruits they will produce. Yesterday Tony added another level to the wooden potato tower, and he will add a third level on Thursday. The tower is very full of foliage. I hope they're making lots of potatoes in there. Here's a photo of the wooden potato tower. In the background you can see part of the new portion of the in-ground garden that has eggplant, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, etc. and the old mattress springs that will be the trellis for the Suyo cucumber, beans, and peas. Up front is the motley assortment of winter sown peppers - most of which don't even have any true leaves yet. I'm admittedly worried that this year will be another bust for winter sown peppers. The tire potato tower has all four tires on now. I think I killed a couple of the plants when I added the second tire and they never came up again. Alas, there are three plants (as far as I can tell) that are seeming to grow well enough. If anyone has any more tires in the area, I'd like another 4-6 tires to keep stacking. I wonder how many tires I can stack in one season - and how many potatoes we can yield. I've got a ladder, and I'm willing to use it! A big thank you to the wonderful person who traded with me this spring so we could do this project! Today I got all of my herbs replanted into pots, got all of the tomatoes transplanted into the in-ground garden, and got all of the holes dug and (Epsom) salt added for the pepper plants to go in tomorrow (I ran out of sunlight today). Tomorrow I hope to get all of the pepper plants in the ground, as well as the basil plants, and the corn seeded (yes, I know I'm probably too late). I'm also hoping to get my chives and bunching onions transplanted into bigger containers.
In rabbit news - Anna and Ansen are pending pick up Wednesday, and I'm hoping to line up a pick up day for Black Beard and Bangarang too. This will leave just Ashley and Bixby yet to find homes as Dan and Deanna come of age to find new homes. I've been a little busy this weekend. Yesterday was my brother-in-law's wedding. It was stressful for me. I don't do well in social situations, especially when I can't escape from it for many hours. So at some point I did break away and go for a walk through the Arboretum with Tony, #2, and #5. We came upon some deer, a rabbit, and several chipmunks. It was pretty cool.
Today Tony finished tilling the big patch in the back that will hold the tomatoes, peppers, and possibly corn. I will be planting that in the next few days once I can get some Epsom salt to add to the tomato holes. Today I also got the new in-ground garden patch beside the garage all planted. It's about 17-18 feet long by 4-feet wide, and I added nine 3-block stepping isles between rows to help give full access to the area. I planted a majority of my non-tomato/pepper winter sown remnants there. There are Black Knight eggplants, a White Sword eggplant, Long Island Improved Brussels sprouts, Violet cauliflower, Winter Dream cauliflower, celery, and Romanesco broccoli. I also direct sowed Purple Top turnips, mixed carrots, Golden beets, Bull's Blood beets, Chioggia beets, and along the old bed springs that I'm using as a trellis, I also planted Mammoth Melting Snow peas, mixed beans (Dow Purple Pod, Gold Marie, and Kentucky Wonder), and a store-bought Suyo cucumber plant. All between the two potato towers (tires on one end, wooded tower on the other). On Friday we swung by Menards, and I found the clearance rack in the Garden Center. I do love a good deal. I found four of the mystery melons I bought earlier, now on clearance for 50-cents each. They all came home with us. #2 snagged a big potted lavender plant for $2 (usually $5 or $10), and the only thing wrong with it was that they hadn't watered it and the leaves were starting to die. We took it home and gave it a good deep watering and it's already springing back to health. I'm hoping to get the tomatoes and peppers planted tomorrow or Tuesday, and I will get a photo of the in-ground garden then. I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to see that most of the squares in the large raised bed up front are showing some sprouts! It should fill in quickly. It always feels like it takes forever, but it really does grow pretty fast. Late again this year, but I finally got the large raised bed in front planted. This year we are using two bamboo fences set up in a T shape to grow our vegetables. This year I planted: Row 1: Yayay carrots (hybrid), Cosmic Purple carrots, Oxheart carrots, Turkish Black carrots, Atomic Red carrots, Tom Thumb peas, Alabama Red Okra (x2, both winter sown) Row 2: Double Yield cucumber, Prizewinner beans, Mexican Sour Gherkin (this one isn't planted yet as I have misplaced the seeds), Dragon Egg cucumber, Ram's Horn bean, Spacemaster 80 cucumber, Clemson Spineless okra (x2 both winter sown) Row 3: Sultan's Golden Crescent bean, Boston Pickling cucumber, Blue Podded Blauwschokkers peas, Hutterite Soup Bean (x2 squares), Calypso/YinTang/Orca beans, Clemson Spineless okra (x2 both winter sown) Row 4: Oregon Sugar Pod II peas, Galopka bean, Kitchen King bean, Coral (shell) peas, Picklebush cucumber, Beurre de Rocquencourt bean, White Sword eggplant (x2 both winter sown) Row 5: Snowbird peas, Triomphe de Farcy beans, Dwarf Grey Sugar peas, Hildora beans, De Grace peas, Royal Burgundy beans, Ichiban eggplant (store bought), Black Knight eggplant (wintersown). Front brick row: lettuces I am completely out of calypso/yin yang/orca beans. Last year they didn't grow well at all. I'm hoping for a better performance this year so we can save some seeds. I've also run almost out of Prizewinner beans and Dragon Egg cucumbers. We tried the dragon egg cucumber seeds last year and didn't get a single sprout. I'm hoping this year will be better on them as well. We've had an explosion of baby bunnies in the last 48 hours. Snowflake had shown no signs of nest building, and she wasn't witnessed breeding, so I thought maybe it hadn't worked out this go round. Her due date came and went, so I set my sights on upcoming litters from Lola and Penelope (both proven breeders). Suddenly Lola, Snowflake, Penelope, and Elsa (who isn't due for another two weeks) started to pull fur all at once! Unfortunately (and entirely my fault on this) I wasn't able to get a nest box in to Snowflake's cage in time, and she had her babies on the wire. There were ten originally, but three were already dead when I found them, and despite bringing them into the house and warming them up before returning them to her, three more died that night. She has four left and she seems to be caring for them, adding fur to the nest I made from what fur I could salvage from her cage. This means that Jack Frost is now proven. Not to be outdone, Penelope delivered her litter the very next morning. Ten adorable babies. I wasn't sure what to expect when crossing a broken tri to a harlequin pattern, but it looks (upon first glance) as though we have spotted babies, harlequin babies, and possibly some solid whites? I look forward to seeing them grow and develop. Later in the evening Lola delivered her litter. Eight babies, and a reminder how quickly rabbits can breed. I had originally put Lola in with Sushi, but she was acting aggressively toward him and not letting him do his job. So I removed her from Sushi and put her in with George, where she promptly bred. As you may notice in the photo (sorry it's not great), five of the eight babies are marked like Sushi. Sneaky Sushi got his job done anyway. The three black kits are George's offspring. Today I get to go meet up with my mom and her sisters (my aunts) to plan a family reunion next month.
Happy Father's Day to all the dads, step-dads, foster dads, grandpas, great grandpas, and other father-figures. Yesterday was a hard day. When I went out to feed and water the bunnies, I found a kit on the ground at the edge of the bunny barn. When I picked it up, I saw that the skin had been torn off one of the front feet, a toe was missing on the other foot, and a back foot was badly broken. I rushed to check the nest box, and found the rest of the massacre. Two dead babies, and two more with catastrophic leg wounds. After consulting with a rabbit group I'm in on Facebook, I suspect the neighbor dog got under the hutch and tried to pull the babies' legs through the 1/2" x 1/2" wiring at the bottom of the nest box. The three babies left alive were too damaged to survive, and I didn't want them to suffer. It was my first experience having to cull baby bunnies and though I knew something might come up some day, I admit I was completely unprepared to take this step. This is the hardest thing I've had to do in my experience raising rabbits. I was forced to kill babies that would have otherwise been perfectly healthy, well cared for kits - and I suspect it's due to my neighbor being irresponsible and letting her terrier run loose (despite a leash law in our area) yet again. An entire litter massacred. My kids cried, I did what I had to and then I cried too. Rest in peace poor babies. I'm so sorry that your short lives included such pain and suffering. I'm sorry I had to take your lives to end your pain. I'm sorry that I failed to prevent this violent attack. Tellurium is not a happy camper. She was upset when I took her dead and damaged babies away. Between the heat and the timing for the county fair, she won't be bred again until after the fair (the first week of August). She was a good momma for the five days she had her babies.
I will be working on getting fencing bought set up to prevent this from happening again. I think that if I surround most of the bunny barn with the plastic fencing about three feet tall it should be enough to keep the dog out. Then I can use a couple chain link kennel panels as gates/doors that can be slid out of the way while we are feeding and watering. This would also offer more protection if we have any escape artists in the future. We had an interesting end to the day today. The good news is that we get to pick out a new toaster soon. The bad news is that our old toaster oven decided to die today in the most spectacular way. It lit on fire.
Our kitchen smells terrible, and the rest of the house has an acrid stench hanging about. Windows are open and doors will be open tomorrow to try to air it out. Thankfully we were able to toss the toaster in the sink and hose it off to douse the flames before it spread. Lesson learned - when the label says "in case of flare up" let's just avoid the product all together. We will be buying a plain toaster to replace the toaster oven. I'm feeling very fortunate to have been able to contain the flames to the toaster, and thankful for my kids who remembered right away that the label said to unplug it "in case of flare up." and did so immediately. Whew - that's enough excitement for me today. I'm off to bed. P.S. Make sure your home has working smoke detectors! It can save lives! Carswell and Coleson moved out to the Hyde-A-Way Bay Resort in Hackensack today. I'm sure they will be well loved by the campers there. As long as they stay out of trouble, they should be returning in the fall.
I filled in the rest of the dirt in the potato grow bag, and added a second tire to the potato tire tower. The sprouts in the wooden tower aren't quite big enough yet for their next level. I noticed today that there is one sprout where I planted the green fleshed honeydew melon seeds. Yay! We may get melons yet this year! I also went ahead and planted the Mutabile zucchini, Kajari melon, White Acorn squash, and Long Island Cheese pumpkin seedlings in the new small raised bed out front. I'm hoping they do well. I have two more spaces in that garden that should have been Cushaw and Theron's Winter Harvest squashes, but neither of those came up. :( I worry that if I try to start seeds there, the seedlings will just smother them out. I may try it anyway. Nothing to lose by it but a few seeds, right? Maybe I'll try different varieties. I've got some pretty neat pumpkin and squash varieties I'd like to try out. Carswell (white with spots) and Coleson (brown) are six weeks old now and ready for their next adventure. They will be spending the summer at Hyde-A-Way Bay Resort in Hackensack. Every summer they release tame bunnies to entertain the campers, delighting children and adults alike, and at the end of the year the bunnies either go home with campers or back to the breeder(s). I'm so excited to participate in this program this year. Carswell and Coleson will be leaving this week to join Bertram and Beatrice at the resort. If you haven't made any summer plans yet, please check out Hyde-A-Way Bay Resort and book your next family trip! Bertram, Beatrice, Carswell, and Coleson, and possibly a couple of Elizabeth's babies will be there waiting to greet you and play in the grass outside the cabins. Don't forget to check out their Facebook page for photos of the bunnies and the resort as well. Keep an eye out for their return this fall! Our Siberian iris (Halcyon Seas) is flowering for the first time. We planted it two or three years ago. The leaves are much narrower than the root beer irises, and the neighbor's irises. It's a beautiful deep purple color. Our neighbor's favorite color was purple. It's a shame that it didn't flower until after she passed away. I think she'd have really enjoyed seeing it. I invested my bunny money (from selling bunnies) to buy a new hutch for Alice. It seems so big compared to her right now, but I have a feeling it will be just right or a little small for her once she's full grown. Because Carswell and Coleson are weaned and will be leaving later this week, #1 decided she wants to repeat the breeding and pair Cinder to Sushi again. I've never bred a doe while she still has babies with her, and I didn't want to risk her being aggressive toward the babies after she was bred, so I attempted to put them in with the older babies (Lola and Penelope's litters). They had grown up in side-by-side cages, but the biggest buck (Ashley) started getting aggressive with the other bunnies when they got close to Carswell. He wasn't mean to Carswell, and they all seemed fine with Coleson, but there again, not worth risking harm. So Carswell and Coleson are temporarily staying in the new hutch with Alice. She doesn't seem to mind the company, and everyone is getting along now. Cinder was put in with Sushi, but it doesn't look like anything happened. I will be putting them together again tomorrow in hopes of better results.
Tellurium should have a litter tomorrow if her second breeding attempt worked. If not, I'm not sure if we will give her a third try, wait to show her at the fair and then sell her, or just sell her now. I did plant one of the Mutabile Zucchini plants in the back tulip garden and have been keeping it watered. I'm really hoping some of the watermelon seeds sprout and grow. I walked to a greenhouse nearby and picked up another Rosemary plant (the one I bought before is dying), and a Lemon Thyme plant (which I've been looking for for a while now). The potatoes in the wooden tower are finally poking up, and the potatoes in the ire are almost ready to have the second tire added. Now if I could just get the back yard tilled so I could get everything else planted before it's too late in the season! Today I planted eight melon varieties in the back tulip garden. I'm hoping the melon plants will shade out much of the grass and weeds that are cropping up between the tulips and irises right now. It will be a jumbled mess of melons, strawberries, raspberries, and flowers. Included in the new melon selection are: Hearts of Gold cantaloupe, Honeydew Green Flesh, Sweet Siberian watermelon, Jubilee watermelon, Carolina Cross watermelon, Georgia Rattlesnake watermelon, Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon, and Yellow Moon and Stars watermelon. I left enough space for a squash plant. I think I will transfer one of the Mutabile zucchini plants from the winter sown containers. Mutabile zucchini is supposed to be a bush variety with powdery mildew resistance. It should fit just perfectly in that spot. Yesterday we picked up a new bunny. Her name will be Alice. She is half Flemish Giant and half Californian, and she was born 3/27/16. She's a sweetheart. Due to Tony's work schedule and the availability of the breeder, #3, #5 and I ended up taking a bike ride to go and meet the breeder to pick her up. You'll notice that the photo above was taken as soon as we got home and she was still in the bike carrier part that #5 rode in. He was happy to share his space with Alice. I hope to get a better photo of Alice later. The root beer irises are blooming. They are just wonderful. I catch #4 sometimes balancing on the brick garden border leaning over to smell them. When we move I absolutely have to dig them up and bring them with.
Today I dug out the pots I could find out of the garage and #4, #5, and I started to repot the plants that have been sitting in their sad little containers for weeks since we brought them home. First we did the strawberries. I have always wanted to try doing this set up with the stacked pots each facing the opposite ways. It looks so neat, I had to try it. I still need two or three more pots to fill the post and I have three more strawberry plants still in the little cells they came home in. Then we transplanted the sage that is already flowering, then the lavender plant, and lastly the little surprise hosta. Last year I winter sowed two containers of hosta seeds and nothing came up. I was really disappointed. This spring when I finally got around to tossing out the failed containers from last year, I saw the skeleton of a leaf in the bottle. I thought - maybe, just maybe it was such a late riser that I missed it completely. No harm in setting it aside to see what happens. Well, today I checked on the bottle and sure enough! One hosta leaf sticking up from the old dry soil in the container. Now it has its own pot and better soil. Hopefully it fills out a bit. It looks pretty pathetic in the pot right now, but I have faith that it will grow. I am a little sad that the only hosta I got is a solid green. I was really hoping for something with more color. I love the ones with light green around the edges. Oh well. I'm just happy to have my very first hosta, and I'm so proud to have grown it from seed! The root beer irises in the back are starting to bloom. I got them from a local gardener last year in trade for some beet seeds. I must say I am madly in love with them. They really do smell just like root beer, and they're not unattractive either. In the background there you can also see one of the raspberry canes that popped up in the back flower garden last year. It actually has some blossoms, so I anticipate berries this year. It will be interesting to see if the berries are black like the plants up front, or red like the bush we tried to transplant back there (and then accidentally mowed). The red one is coming back really well this year, and Tony is more consciences about where it's at now. It (the transplanted red bush) won't produce anything this year though. It sounds like some of our bunnies will be moving off to new homes soon. Both of Cinder's babies are spoken for already, two of Penelope's babies, and one of Lola's babies are all supposed to leave soon (Cinder's babies not until next week when they've been weaned). Some are set to go to a resort out in Hackensack where they will be let loose for campers to interact with. They will be coming back at the end of the year (assuming all goes well). It sounds like an interesting idea, and I think they'd get all kinds of attention from the constant flow of kids and vacationers. I know Bertram will do well there. He loves attention and actively seeks it out. He's sure to be a crowd favorite. I admit, I'll miss him though. He's one of the biggest sweethearts we've had so far. I'm glad the plan is to bring him back at the end of the camping season! Below are Cuddles' babies in the nest box. I'll be taking the fur out soon as they're starting to leave the nest box sometimes. That yellow one is just the cutest thing, but not fond of being held just yet. More handling is needed, but with summer break here, I'm sure that won't be a problem at all! Tomorrow I'm hoping to get more seeds planted, measure out the front raised beds (maybe transplant some squash into the smaller bed), get the back garden tilled, and maybe finish the last part of the cat mansion. All the while I also have to go pick up #3 from her two night sleepover with a friend, possibly meet two people for bunnies, and make a Costco run. Poor Tony gets a full schedule every time he gets a day off.
I completed my bandanna wreath project today. It's not exactly as I saw it on a Facebook post scrolling through my newsfeed, but I like it anyway. To start out, the original post I found called for six red, six white, and six blue bandannas. You can find them at most dollar stores, or at Walmart. If you buy them from the craft section at Walmart they are 97-cents, but if you buy them from the accessories isle (purses, scarves, handbags, etc) at Walmart, they're $1 each. In this project I only used 3 blue, 3 white, and 4 red (with half left over. You will also need one wreath ring. I've seen people use metal wreath rings with three bars, and I've seen people suggest the floral foam rings. I guess you could use something store bought, but I happened to have this metal ring that once held a pine bough wreath, so that's what I used. You will need to cut your bandannas in half. Most designs have a pretty clear line, and if yours doesn't, just cut along the center fold line. My advice is not to cut all of them at once. Cut them as you'll be using them so you don't ruin/waste them if you don't need as many. Take one half of a red and fold it in half lengthwise, and then again (now folded into quarters so it's long and thin). Now fold it in half the other way. Place it under the wreath wire with the folded end pointed out. Pull the ends over the wire, through the folded end, and pull tight. You may need to wiggle it and mess with it to get it on as tight at you can. Mine weren't tight against the wire, but it wasn't loose either. It looked rather relaxed, but tight enough that it wasn't going to slip or fall off. Some of the knots remind me of the top of a tie. Once you have your first red piece tied on, add a white one to the right of it. Continue this red/white pattern. The original project I saw continued it to 2/3 of the wreath wire. I noticed however,, that the US flag has seven red and six white stripes with both the top and bottom stripe being red. It also just happened to work perfectly to 2/3 of the wreath to keep this pattern. This means I did end up with one half of a red bandanna left over. Repeat the process with your blue bandanna pieces for the remaining 1/3 of the wreath wire. Add a wire to the top (between the last blue and the first red piece) for hanging. Lastly, take all of the bandanna pieces and unfold (fluff out) the ends. Each knot will have two strips sticking out. This will give a fuller look and prevent the knots from coming undone as easily. Most guides I found suggested adding stars to the blue area, but the bandana design I used (darker edges around lighter middle) seems to make this wreath look complete without any additional stars. My wonderful little #5 managed to spill his cup on the blue bandannas before I even started this project. I had to throw the blue ones through the washer and dryer. I'm not sure if it's the washing/drying or the fact that the blue bandannas came from the accessory isle while the red and white bandanas came from the craft isle, but the blue ones are much floppier than the red and white ones. I'm not sure how it's going to stand up to hanging up for any length of time. It looks great on the table though. You never know, maybe it would make an awesome table centerpiece with a dish in the middle or something.
Total expenses for this project: $9.79 plus tax ($10.57). Retail value estimated at $20-$30. This project took under an hour, but the most time consuming part (aside from washing and drying the blue ones) was pulling the staples out of the bandanas from the packaging. The Memorial day salad was pretty good. The spinach wasn't great, but the lettuce was tasty. The potato sprouts are up in the bag and the tire. Imagine my surprise when the sprouts were initially a dark blue! They leafed out to green, but it's still tinted a dark blue along the veins. I wonder if they will stay this way or if they will grow green as the leaves get farther from the seed potato. I finally got around to spraying the sealant on the paintings that #1 and I did a few months ago. Tony says he wants us to sell at least two before we can paint any more. #1 has already promised her two to Grandma (I dropped them off today). I guess that leaves me to sell the remaining four. With any luck, the next time I have time (maybe next week?) I will get those photographed and listed somewhere online. I've got a real nice red white and blue one that I think might sell well. Elizabeth was due a few days ago, and just as I was wondering if the breeding had taken, she started fur pulling. I gave her some straw, and she tried to build her nest beside the nest box. I put it back in the nest box, and she pulled it all out and put it beside the nest box again. So I turned the nest box sideways to cover the area she was trying to nest. She spent a few minutes pacing the cage with hay in her mouth, but ultimately decided the nest box was a good place to make a nest. She made a nice straw and fur nest and I anticipate babies on my morning rounds! Little #4 will be thrilled. Her last day of school and her bunny will have babies. Hopefully she's a good mom. I've got a couple projects in the works. I'm going to try to make a wreath that I saw on a Facebook post using an old wreath wire and some bandannas. I'll try to get photos throughout the process and share so other people can try it out too. I still need to find some big stars as a finishing touch.
I'm also going to try my hand at making a cat scratch post. Just a small one, using the cheap scrap lumber and a couple squares of carpet. We'll see how it turns out. If it's not too hard, and the cats love it, maybe I could make a few more. I'm hoping that both projects will be something that I can do without Tony's help. I keep seeming to come up with projects I can't manage myself. Our current project we're just wrapping up is a giant 6-foot kitty enclosure to keep the cats contained. Some of them have decided the house is their litter box, and rather than ban them to the tiny bathroom, or have to rehome them, I've decided to give them a spacious two level mansion. So far they don't seem too terribly upset about it. I also need Tony to till the garden (I can't deal with the noise and vibration of the tiller or the mower), make my bean trellises (which should have been my project but the piece I needed wasn't there and Tony made some mental calculations and modifications so now I have no idea how he plans to make them), and as of today I've decided to fix up one of the old rabbit hutches we got a while ago... It needs a complete overhaul. I weighed all of the weaned baby bunnies today. No surprise that Lola's litter is bigger than Penelope's litter. Bangarang and Beatrice are the smallest at 2.5 pounds (yay! Bixby isn't the runt anymore), and Ashley and Ansen are the biggest at 3.5 pounds. I rechecked genders just to be absolutely sure, and everyone is as they should be. I may end up selling Bennett and Penelope, as well as Elsa. They are the smallest three of my breeding rabbits, and I want to focus my attention on bigger bunnies. I also checked gender on Cinder's babies, looks like two bucks. I checked Cuddles's babies too and I think she has one boy and one girl. Of course I will continue to check to make sure the "sex change fairy" all rabbit breeders dread doesn't visit. I was 100% accurate on Penelope's litter, and while I was right on the number of boys and girls in Lola's litter, two of them were initially mis-checked. |
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