A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong

Not what you might think. 

After days and days of very cold temperatures and frozen water at every rabbit cage, we woke up this morning to warmer air and a sunny sky. 

I took the tops off the cages out in the garden and let the bunnies experience some bright, warm sunshine.   They ran and jumped like crazy!  It was fun to see them so happy!

Each cage was swept out thoroughly.  I cleaned out from under each cage, filling each cage with some fresh food and hay.  That’s quite a job first thing in the morning!  Gets your blood moving for sure!

Gingersnap is pretty quiet and calm, and seems to wonder when Rodriguez and Peter will calm down.  I know they don’t look like they have enough room, but the plan is to put a small-gauge wire around the perimeter of the garden so that the bunnies can get out and run while I’m out there to watch them.

They ran and ran and RAN.  If I do let them out in my fenced-in veggie garden, what do you think are the chances that they’ll eat weeds instead of my veggies? 

I’ve acquired quite a mass of bunny droppings and decaying hay in the corner of the garden.  What fertilizer I hope to have come spring! 

Toby Keith is more of a pet than an outside bunny.  He gets petted more and visited by the neighbor children.  He’s on the porch in a “real” storebought cage.  At some point in the spring, I do hope to have him out with the rest of his family.

Well, I’m off to redeem some coupons and then I have to clean up my old house a bit, and then I have to work.  That’s a cycle that runs over and over and over again! 

Enjoy this last day of 2010.

Happy Monday Morning! It’s a work day for me, but just wanted to pop in and give an update on things around here, especially the baby bunnies! Thank you so much for all the kind words about the babies and your encouraging me not to feel too badly about it.

I knew you’d be happy to know that, so far, all 7 babies are alive and well and snuggled into a warm nest lined with Coco’s fur. I held one for just long enough to get a picture this morning. They are SO little, but this stage won’t last long at all.

I did manage this weekend to do some weeding and planting in the vegetable garden.   The flower gardens are in their normal state of lovely disarray, but I find that you cannot grow vegetables if you let the weeds take over.  (Or maybe flowers are just prettier as they come to terms with who dominates where.)

May not look like much, but I hauled 4 wheelbarrows full of weeds from this vegetable garden.  I did it with great care as I knew that things were growing here that I wanted to keep:  oregano, fennel, parsley, etc.

Here you can see the one row that we had completed a couple of weeks or so ago.  It has really taken off, with tons of lamb’s quarters, spinach, mustard greens, carrots (which you cannot see), peas, cat grass (for the bunnies), and even a poke plant.

We find it to be ideal to plant the peas along the perimeter of the garden so that they run right along the fence and then up strategically placed poles.

One of my biggest problems in the garden is getting busy, doing hours’ worth of planting and then thinking, “I planted what, where?” This year I got smart and laminated seed packs as I went, punching holes in the tops and tying them over the rows. It’s an easy reminder of when to thin, how to harvest, what’s growing where. Yeah, especially what’s growing where!

Michaela’s old sandbox was pretty much unused.  In fact, there really wasn’t any sand in it anymore.  I dug it out of the ground, for it had sunken down over time, and moved it to the garden.  I layered the bottom with decaying leaves (brings the earthworms to the top), then a thick layer of bunny droppings and finally an even thicker layer of compost.  Now it holds the seeds to one of my favorite, favorite plants:  dill.  Mmmmm.

The bronze fennel is free now from the dandelions, wild geraniums and other things that were taking over.  Not that I don’t love dandelions — you know I do, but you can only have so many where you are planning to grow your vegetable crops.

On a last urban homesteading note, I do live on a very small lot, and really “downtown.”  I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.   I am a country mouse in the city.  I find that bunnies are one of the sweetest creatures to keep when you are trying to garden in town.  They are easy (well, if you can build a hutch and have space for them), they give the children something to love, they provide fertilizer for the garden, and eat certain weeds from the garden, and that, in turn, produces very healthy baby bunnies.  Bunnies are not the cuddly creatures you see in storybooks, however, and do not generally like to be held.  Our bunnies do know us and come to the hutch door to visit with us, but they don’t jump into our arms by any means.  Anyway, just wanted to say that.

I must get busy!  I have gourd luffa seeds that have soaked overnight and I must get them in the ground this morning.  (Thanks, Demeca!!)  I also want to take some hot tea outside and just admire all the work that was accomplished this weekend.  I need to feed some bunnies as well. 

Enjoy this day.