At sunrise when I opened up the chicken coop and the bunny barn, both of the missing chickens returned. As of bedtime, the guineas refused to go into the coop for the night, so they are out in the tree behind the coop tonight.
At one point I glanced out the window only to see two of the chicken coop rabbits playing in the yard. O watched them for a minute to see if I could figure out how they'd gotten out, but then was called away by #5 again. A minute later I looked out and one had gone back in the fence. I told #5 I'd be right back, and went out to figure it out before all four were running loose. As I stepped out the door, the last free rabbit bolted back into the fenced area. Aha! Found their hole.
They have been loving the dirt and grass there, digging every day. Sometimes enough that we have to shovel out the doorway to get the door shut at night. Today they managed to dig a hole under the fence.
I shooed the bunnies back into the coop and shut the door. At first I started to fill in the hole, but then thought, why not put the spare panel up to enlarge the outside fenced area? I'd been planning to do it anyway, why not?
As soon as I had finished (and by then #5 had put on his muck boots and joined me outside), the older kids got home from school. Within about 15 minutes I started having severe tummy pains again. Yeah, I overexerted myself repairing the play area. It didn't seem like hard work. I did some shoveling, pushed and pulled fences that were stuck on grass clumps, and moved some bricks around. Nothing that I wouldn't do in the summer time weather. But for whatever reason, when it's cold out, my body says "no thank you" to exercise... and sometimes to being outdoors at all.
I took a couple ibuprofen and figured I'd be alright. Tony arrived home from work about an hour later, and by then I was contorting into odd positions laying on the floor trying to find some manner of relief. An hour later I gave up and curled up in bed, practicing relaxation breathing to try to keep the pain under control. Eventually it got to the point where I told Tony I was going to have to go to sleep and hope it was better when I woke up. This is my last-ditch effort when the pain gets too bad. Try to sleep it off. Most of the time it works. So off to dreamland I went. Tony made dinner for the kids, helped with homework, and got them all to bed (except #5 who came and woke me up to curl up and fall asleep in my bed).
So here I am, up at one in the morning, catching up on my blog, and looking forward to taking a nap tomorrow since Tony has the day off.
Yesterday #3 and I started going through our seed collection to update our inventory for our trades page. So far I've gone through corn, peas, lettuce, and some others. It's really a lot of work. I am missing my entire bin of beans. An entire shoe box sized plastic tote, literally stuffed to the brim... I even asked Tony to stop by the old house to look for it, but he says it's not there. I'm hoping it got misplaced and is here somewhere and I just haven't found it yet. There were a lot of beans, including some really rare ones in that bin.
Anyway, I'm hoping to get the inventory finished this week - at least with the seeds I have here. I am really dreading the bigger collections... Squash, peppers, and tomatoes. There are so many seeds in those boxes that I worry organizing them will be an all day affair for each bin. In the meantime, #3 is in charge of the flower seeds. The shoe box sized plastic tote is already stuffed full and now she's got more seeds stacked on top of the box. Organizing that one is a bit of a nightmare too.
And then there are the seeds that could go in two different boxes... Amaranth is a flower, but it's also a green, and can be used as a grain. Is marshmallow a green, a flower, or an herb? Technically it can be used as all three. Should burdock go in with herbs or root vegetables? Chamomile and yarrow are flowers and herbs. Poppies are flowers, but they also produce seeds you can put in muffins. The cross-over can be confusing at times, but I'm trying to get the massive collection tamed down somewhat.
As of after school time today, Boon was doing well. I'm told he's cuddling with his momma, and has been seen eating pellet food now and then as well. Tonight the low is set to be 31-degrees. I hope the little guy snuggles with momma and stays warm tonight!