Gypsy made it her official business to supervise our work. She's adorable. The goopy eye she had when she arrived is all better now. She's eating well, and despite still being tiny, I think she's doing well. She's roughly six or seven weeks old now. She continues to sleep in Neelix's cage, and then we let her run loose all day. She's pretty much on the same schedule as Josh (the goose) and the ducks.
When the girls went in to take showers and get back into real clothes, I returned to my work behind the bunny barn. I put the wooden wall panel back up, and used screws to secure it in place. It had been falling over when we moved in, and unfortunately there is some bending to the wood that I couldn't correct, but it is secured now by two screws in each of the three boards it is pushed up against.
While moving all the logs and boards from the West side to the East side of the wood shed, I came across a board that was just the perfect length to span between two of the support beams. I added two screws spaced roughly eight inches apart in the center of the board and secured it to the structure. This will be where I process rabbits. Not a pleasant idea to most folks, but a reality on the homestead. We are not vegetarians, and I'd rather eat meat that I know was raised and dispatched humanely.
This space has a roof over the top and a partial wall on two sides (a solid wall behind and is open in front). This should block the sun enough that we don't have to worry about weeding our compost pile. It will likely need to be hosed down a few times, but I plan on getting a hose extension to reach back to this space anyway to help with rabbit processing. I'm not sure about turning the pile. Perhaps we'll just let it rot as it's added. That's always how we've dealt with the rabbit manure before - taking it straight out from under the old bunny barn every spring to add to the gardens. I think it should be fine to do the same here, except we'll be moving the manure to this secondary location. With the bunnies now having an actual building to live in, we need to be more focused on removing manure in a timely manner. The old bunny barn was largely open and allowed the smell to dissipate naturally. The enclosed barn doesn't give that opportunity. It's a trade-off. Better protection from the elements and better odds for surviving kits in winter, but more work maintaining good hygiene. We also haven't gotten the rabbit cages mounted up or on stands yet, so they're all propped up on cinder blocks, which means the space beneath them fills up pretty quickly, especially for cages with multiple bunnies in them!
A compost heap will be a great addition to our homestead, and it didn't cost us anything but time and elbow grease.
While playing 4-square with Tony and the kids, it became apparent that #4's eyesight is causing some serious problems for her. She isn't coordinated at all, she has no depth perception, and despite trying repeatedly to show her how to play, she simply couldn't coordinate well enough to even have a chance at really participating. She's virtually blind, which we'd been told, but she'd always been decent at hiding it. She doesn't walk into things, but this would explain her slow down in school learning, and her frustration with reading (she wants to read, but struggles). Poor girl. I really hope her glasses help her out and that her teacher is patient with her.