Stewart - The Animal Lover

Stewart has recently convinced us to let him keep a bunny, Chewbaka. He has promised to care for him and has contractually signed his agreement. Better a bunny than a parakeet or fish that he wanted. He tends to be the one concerned with the raising of the animals and likes to pretend he is part of the flock. When Stewart is upset, I can usually find him locked inside the coop area, sitting on an upside down bucket, crying to the animals. It makes him feel better, so that is okay with me.  




Stewart and Max. Max doesn't mess with the chickens after they pecked him a couple of times. In the event he is left behind in the coop (after trying to steal food scraps) he is usually wimpering in the corner somewhere. We have had Max for a year now and he is a great little dog.   

Stewart and Java. We have had Java for 11 years now. She was adopted as a kitten from the SPCA. She was a fiesty cat when she was younger but is remarkably calmer around the boys and has spared them pain of being scratched and bitten. 

Stewart wanted me to bring in two of our bunnies, Chewbaka and Peter, for a class show-and-tell.

He likes to visit with our hens. He tries to be the one getting the eggs, but Jason usually beats him to the punch. We have since re-done our coop area as this setup was a pain to get in and out of.  

Jason - The Food Helper



Jason helping Daddy to make homebrew wort.



Jason checking on the homebrew process after a week of this sitting in our cabinet.

Jason took this photo of me preparing extra beer bread mix to be stored for a later time. He has helped with a lot of my food storage into mason jars.

Jason learning proper cooking safety to cook his own egg.

He noticed the cat was out of food.

He has been "cooking" and periodically checking on his mudpie. It was raining, but it didnt deter him from going outside.

A Girl and A Gutter

So, the rain has been coming down off and on during this month. I had noticed water collecting on the wrong side of the gutter, and ultimately spilling over the side. I am only 5'3" and needed to clear the debris in the gutter. Rather than climb a ladder while it's raining, I just used a standard garden hoe and gently ran it along the inside of the gutter. With my height plus the length of the garden hoe handle, I was able to stand on the ground without the worry of falling off a ladder. Plus, if something fell, I can get quickly out of the way. Just prepare for the water to gush out from the cleared water downspout. My particular culprit - a mudball. I suspect my sons had thrown it there from my garden.    

Lee's Bees

We will soon be adding a Carniolan beehive to Rlittlefarm. It's a bit scary and exciting to purposely bring a bunch of stinging insects to our property. It seems like a natural transition in the amount of plants I grow each season and it makes sense to have a little help in the pollination of all those flowers. I have been prepping the boys in the role honeybees play in the garden. 1 out of every 3 bites of food is created by honeybees pollinating a flower. I hope to have quite the lush garden once they arrive. Naturally I am afraid that they will swarm away or bother my neighbors and visitors, but I have been noticing so many bees lately anyway, without the boys being bothered, that I think they will be fine. Besides, when I really look around my neighborhood, no one is really outside besides us.

We have some piecemeal bee suits for the boys and ourselves - mostly from thrift store finds and items off Ebay. A few items were from China and the Ukraine. I was a bit skeptical that they would arrive but they turned out to be pretty good finds compared to beekeeping suppliers in the US. I hope they last and perform as they are supposed to.

Jason showing off some of the Ebay items

I found the veil and gloves off Ebay and the pants from a thrift store

Poopy and Stud Muffin

This is Poopy, our younger female doe. Poopy was not my choice in names. I would've preferred Honey Bunny but the kids named her.

This is Stud Muffin, our resident rabbit love-maker. He is quite the escape artist. One time, he escaped and my Mother-In-law called us to let us know (we were at a dinner party). When we got home, it was dark. She said Stud Muffin had been very good and just sitting in the corner. She pointed us towards a white shape by the recycling cans. All three of us slowly crept up on it, and just when we were about to get to him, we discovered it was a volleyball! Ha! Stud Muffin was cruising around in the bushes instead.  



The Kits

Kits born on 2-16-2012

Kits one week old         

Two weeks old on 3-2

We have five happy, hopping kits. Ultimately, there were seven born and two didn't make it past the first few days of birth. They were buried and our sons laid some flowers for them in rememberance.

One Big Bunny Family

In late January, we added rabbits to the mix. Our friends gave us rabbits that they needed to re-home. We got two lionheads and two regular probably inbred mutt rabbits. We are not interested in the business of showing rabbits, so their breeds didn't really matter. They needed a home, so we gave them one. We did give one rabbit away to a friend and that rabbit is living a rabbit's dream. That was a good fit and everyone is happy.

Our remaining rabbits are well loved but we try to protect them from predators, our pughuahua dog, or yelling kids. There have been 5 kits born and that has been a great learning experience. In 9 weeks, those bunnies will be dinner. Raising meat rabbits has been our intention however the original rabbits that we kindly received from friends would never see the crock pot. They are going to live out their natural life on our property. Despite the ultimate fate for the babies, they are still treated kindly and with love everyday.