Monday, April 13, 2021

Kicking it off with chickens. I'll need to get these girls a nesting box set up soon. You'll like my idea, it's an improvement on my friend's design, which is an improvement on my old design.

Plum tree chookins

This morning was pretty productive for a Monday morning. Hearty discussions at the end of my work day had me pumped up and excited at a point in the week when I'm usually very very tired.

Strawberry blooms

I fed the rabbits this morning. Exclusively the weeds from Saturdays garden work, and they had leftovers this evening when I left for work. Encouraging. I need to mow the yard again, which will yield either a couple days feed or another excellent compost pile. And feed will just turn into another excellent compost pile anyways. Actually, I'll probably stop composting now and just convert to free rabbit feed. Our feed bill is getting ridiculous, and that trend will only continue moving forward. With that in mind, it's time to cycle out some rabbits to cut the feed bill. Our older rabbits, Buddy Boy, New Buddy Boy, and New Mombun are getting too old to produce and I can use their cages for new does. A breeding program is a nice, busy, constant project I'm finding.

New Mombun with a new litter

New Mombun gave a new litter yesterday. I got home in time to see her pulling some fur and passing her afterbirth. There's 3-5 babies in the best, but that was hard to confirm. I'll confirm in the coming week or so. This is all coming just in time and as anticipated. The other three does should all throw the season's final litter this week as well. I've read that you don't want to breed rabbits when the temps are consistently 80°F, and we're now at that point.

Blackberry with a nesting bucket now!

I made Blackberry a nesting bucket, considering that she'll give birth very soon and doesn't have a place to put the babies. The girls all like getting in their buckets and trying to dig a hole down in them. They dig ferociously for a few seconds at a time, making me wonder how quickly they would dig holes in soil.

A few people I've been networking with have what's called rabbit colonies. It's a more natural approach to rabbit husbandry than battery cages, where the rabbits are kept in a large enclosure in deep bedding. Their life cycles and harvesting happens in a much more natural setting, which is appealing to me. It's also lower maintenance.

Growouts with a mountain of weeds

After the main outdoor chores were done, it was time to work with seedlings. We planted out two more tomatoes and two more jalapenos to the garden, and we uppotted 24 tomatoes, peppers, okra, and moonflowers. I think we're now up to twelve tomatoes outside. They still require watering every couple days because their roots aren't yet into that yummy soil, so that's usually a morning or evening chore. Today I did it in the evening, even though it's supposed to rain for the next week.

Oh yeah, it's supposed to rain for the next week. Much excite for that. While everything is mulched and green, we could definitely use the rain.

Well, that's a wrap for today. It was a great morning, and I think tomorrow I'll try and focus on the pig gate and the cage I'm bringing the pigs home in. It's almost pig time!

Love from Texas

Nate 💚

P.S.
Changing topics abruptly, are y'all watching ARRR? Pirate chain is a badass privacy crypto that's getting pretty popular, going from $0.30 to currently nearly $3 in just a few days. I'm excited to be in on it, especially as it is growing this week. If it hits $1k, I'm paying off my house, selling the house, and buying land. @senstless, if you're still here, this one may be worth a look for you old friend.