The rabbit has... erm... spring fever or twitterpation or what ever, he is now official an all grown up and not the little baby bunny abandoned on a snowy morning in a cardboard box. The only issue is that unlike Blacky who got a crush on me and did dances around my slippers - Fluffy Obsidian has his eye on the chickens and is attempting to be a little more physical.
So I have separated him and he is being booked in for the snip which probably should have happened a while ago. I was kind of interesting to see the normally passive chickens just frustrating him by ambling away but not the one in the nest box laying - oh no she was defending the nest and he got a deserved peck - I was attempting to oust him at this point.
Normally they all get on fine and I find rabbit asleep in with the chickens and chickens laying in the hutch and so on but I'm worried he will cause them a mischief or they him as they have beaks and claws.
He is now bouncing around the garden whilst they are shut in the run - seems the wrong way round somehow!
He is punching the air like a female hare - something Blacky never did. But then Blacky used to turn cart wheels and this one doesn't. Helium went out earlier and came back in quite rapidly so I think he may have a thing for pusskins too.
Jean has finally reached an age where the cats not only don't run away from her, or only guard her/nuzzle her when she is half asleep, but actually seek her out. This includes Helium who has been skittish ever since we moved and tends not to even go on mine or Al's laps!
She keeps being 'held prisoner' by them, ie they sit on her and she finds them so cute that she will give herself cramp trying not to disturb them!
She also loves reading and believes that the cats are reading with her - they always stick their faces in the pages! The worst for this is the kitten who wont let her read!
I think everyone is happy with this arrangement!
With the weather warnings for the weekend we decided not to go to the allotment but to pot up seeds at home and place them in the propogator I have in the dinning area. The girls it turns out are both scared of worms - a bit of an issue as I am using the soil from the wormery instead of compost. Still after a while Jean began acting brave to calm Mary down and they both seemed to get into it as long as I removed the larger, wigglier worms!
We potted up so many tomato seeds that if they all grow I will be looking for homes for some of the plants! There are a few funky varieties and yellow and red cherry varieties as well as normal tomatoes. Then aubigine, chilli, pumpkin and courgette. I was hoping to get the beans in but alas I a) ran out soil, b) rain out of childrens conceptration spans and c) rain out of room in the propogator. If spring is late and everything germinates I could have a slight problem but I will deal with that when I get there!
My current plan is to get some window sill propogators for the remaining seeds. I am running slightly behind schedule as I normally do the potting up outside and wasn't expected the weather to be so rough! I dare not have the little propigator outside for fear it would take off!
I also got round to soaking the shiitake mushroom block I have - it has fruited for industry once but should have another 3 fruitings in it! I got excited as it has instructions in welsh. So hopefully we will soon have our first crop! Jean also found some bean sprouts and alfalfa and instantly wizzed off to find some jars, so we have them soaking under the sink!
I'm going to re-arrange under the sink so that I can grow the mushrooms that need the dark and the bean sprouts in there.
This weekend we have put more bark chippings down in the chicken run as it had again become water logged, there has just been so much rain! Then we set about emptying the compost bin to take to the allotment - or rather I did whilst Alaric cut stakes for the pitch markers, out of scrap wood. I filled up both our wormeries and had a good chunk left over, which had to go into our green bin (we are not currently putting the green bin out though and are using it as an extra composter.
However this was all I managed for the whole 2 days of the weekend. I was so tired from being ill 🙁 Al had to go to the allotment with just Jeany. He said it was even more flooded so he put the compost bin in place - weighted down and marked the boundary and that was it!
Also part of me wondered if it was really worth the work as the compost bin had cost me £20 (it was on sale) but I only want wormeries in the garden as the compost bins simply take too long for the rate of chicken bedding production!
On the plus side, the chickens are producing epic numbers of eggs and we now have two regulars, which we are selling eggs to, each week.
Last year I foraged and grew stuff and was given apples and green tomatoes and so on and I even bought reduced pumpkins after Halloween (which we are still getting through!). I made pies and crumbles and cooked soups, I even made bramble butter for the first time.
And there was still left over food... so me and Al preserved stuff!
We now have a cupboard full of chutney, jams, crystallised and pickled things! We didn't get the drying rack up in time to dry things but that is now in place.
I also now have an empty freezer which I am to fill up with cakes over and fresh produce over the year.
Chickens are laying a stupid number of eggs at the moment so we are selling a couple of boxes a week 🙂
This sort of stuff makes me happy - once I am better I plan to sort out the wine making stuff so I get crack on with that over the coming year.
Also we gave a load of preserves away at Christmas and we were eating them through out the year as well 🙂 Though I did swap some with a friend for different jams and with the neighbours for their cherry syrup!
Animals | sarah | 
Mon 10th Mar 2014 8:31 am | 
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