Oh, Oh, Oh, Who's that Kid with the Oreo Cookie???

I have no idea why that's stuck in my head.  None.  But don't you find it weird that they "discovered" that Oreo cookies are as addictive as cocaine?  Not sure why they did a study on that, to be honest with you.  That was kind of the most interesting part about it.  Hmmmmm........anyway......

Let's get down to it, shall we?  Things have been hopping here, as always.  First, there are the kids.  We are up to the whole "What are you going to be for Halloween?" thing again.  My son knew pretty much right away.  He is a GIANT fan of Minecraft, and wants to be an enderman, which is this thing:

I have no idea what the heck that's supposed to be.  The entire game looks like bad Atari to me, but he loves it, and has bizarrely learned some interesting things from it (like what an ingot is).  It's a building game, it seems, and he loves Legos, so it just works for him.  So he's easy, as all he needs is black clothing and a box for his head.  Love it!  Done.

My daughter, on the other hand, had a hard time.  She always wants to pick what she thinks others would find "cool", but then she's never happy with it.  She 's been happiest when she's chosen something that she would like to be, just because SHE would like to be it, which is really the point in the first place.  So after a lot of deliberation and flip-flopping back and forth, she has decided to be Sam Sparks from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. 

 

THAT one I can get behind.  So we're going with it.  I'm proud of her for picking something (someone?) she wanted to be, not what or who she thought others would want her to be.  Good for her!

In other news, a couple of weeks ago that bear came back again and finished the job.  The bees are D-O-N-E.  I had put them back together, gotten stung, put up a number of "bear preventing" measures, and none of it worked.  The bear guy (or girl) came back and tore both hives apart--there's just no coming back for them.  I am very disappointed, but slightly relieved, only because I had become so allergic it was getting dangerous.  I have begun the cleanup and will salvage any wax possible and then sell the equipment piece by piece.  I guess I'm sticking to maple syrup.  I hope that others will have better success than I did and will keep the bee population up, as it has become so endangered in recent years.  It certainly does not seem that I can help out on that front.

Further on the food front, I have harvested quite a bit of peas from my fall planting--in fact, more, I think, than I got from my spring planting.  I set my son at shelling the last batch I harvested (peeling them, he called it), and it took him over an hour to do it--with help from me and my daughter.

 

Pea peeling boy

Though I can see that the vines are getting tired and thinking about being done, I am hoping that we'll get another nice batch beforehand.  I am happiest that I seemed to have discovered the variety that works best for me here.  I'm hoping it will perform as well in the spring, and then I'll have a winner.  I have been trying to choose varieties that perform fantastically here, and then stick with them year after year.  This is a complete opposite from what I normally like to do, which is try a little of everything to see how it goes.  But, I have come to the time where I'd like to be able to have one or two varieties of a crop that produces very well and that we like to eat so that I'll have more food to put by, instead of lots of little "experimental" crops.  Ahh....the evolution of the homesteader. 

On the cheese making front, things are chugging along.  Can I just stop here for a minute and tell you how MUCH I love making cheese?  I have no idea if I'm any good at it at all, since most of what I've made lately still has a month to age before testing, but OH!  I love making cheese. 

Beautiful curds

Oh my goodness.  I just do.  It's like magic, you know?  Big pot of milk becomes beautiful chunk of cheese. 

“Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.”
―Clifton Paul Fadiman

 

Sage Derby, before the final pressing

Magic!  It's funny, because I do so many things that are so "old", in a way.  I grow food from seed.  I bake bread.  I make soap.  Etc, etc.  Many transformations from one thing to a totally different thing, and many techniques that are old techniques (of course, somewhat revised for today).  But there are very few things that I do that have the ability to transport me back in time the way cheesemaking does.  Working with raw fiber does the same thing for me--sends me right back in time.  Cheesemaking....well, it's just special.

I have decided on a cheese press, I think.  Despite the fact that I really like stacking 50 pounds of bricks up on top of a homemade mold, it's gotten stupid.  Just ask the couple of coffee mug casualties and the flower vase that have bit it since I started with this.  Playing the "when's that going to fall over" game is getting old.  So, though it will have to wait a couple of weeks, I think I have decided to purchase a Dutch cheese press. 

 

Link

This one, I believe.  I really wanted one of those spring ones, because they are more compact.  However, when I really looked into it, I discovered that the tension doesn't stay the same all the time.  As the cheese compresses, the spring relaxes a bit, and then the weight is off and you're not pressing at a consistent pressure.  Therefore, the spring would have to be adjusted fairly often to maintain the correct pressure on the cheese.  I press my cheeses overnight.  I don't want to get up every few hours to turn the pressure up on my cheese.  Dutch presses are apparently a "set it and forget it" kinda deal.  So yes, they are bigger and kinda oddly shaped, but I think it's the way to go.

Speaking of raw fiber (which we weren't), I am going to the Wool and Fiber Festival tomorrow in Rhinebeck!  Squeeeeee!!!!!  A day to myself!  Just me, no kids, no husband.  I will miss them, but I need a day to myself.  I think one a year is fair, no?  Just me and some sheep and hairy goats and lots of stuff to touch and see!  If you remember, I went last year, had a wonderful time talking to myself all day and just looking, and brought home a bunch of rabbits.  This year?  Still planning on the wonderful time, still planning on talking to myself (can't help that one), but no rabbits.  I love my fluffy bunnies, but I have plenty.  This year I am going to look at yarn and spinning wheels and touch everything, and that's how that's going to go.  I will take pictures.  Stay tuned!

And in closing....

Well, I should tell you that the cat population has increased by one this week, and in an odd way.  Here's the story, which is so odd, it could only happen to me, because odd things happen to me all the time.  I was at work on Wednesday, and was heading home during my lunch break to check on things at the house.  I had 1/2 an hour left, and figured I'd just swing by, make a quick check, and then go back to work.  Ha!  As I was going over a bridge, I saw a cat carrier in the shoulder of the road--a busy-ish road, mind you.  The carrier had the word "free" on it on a card.  I thought "Woo hoo!  A carrier!  I should go get that!".  People chuck out stuff all the time.  A lot of it is junk, but sometimes there's something good.  No, I'm not above picking up someone else's junk, especially if it's usable un-junk.  We could use a second carrier, and this one looked nice.  I pulled over where I could and walked back to it. 

As I got closer, I could swear I heard meowing.  I thought that was odd, but as there are some grasses and stuff around there that are tall, and some houses near, it could have been coming from anywhere.  It was hard to tell through the car noises.  However, I got closer, and through the noise of the traffic, I could hear the meowing was coming from inside the carrier.

Yes, friends, someone had put a cat IN the carrier and left it on the side of the road with the word "free" on it.  Oddly enough, behind it, in the tall grass was a litterbox, a scooper, and a single can of cat food.  I know I'm a sucker. But I'm not going to leave a cat to die on the side of the road in a carrier.  It was only a matter of time before someone sideswiped that carrier and killed the little one inside.

I didn't really think and I had no idea what to do next with the cat.  I picked it up, took a look at the little one, and popped him in the back of the car. When I got to a side street, I pulled over and took a look at him (as I discovered, he is a he).  He's young, under a year old, I'd say, and black as pitch.  That is, except for the little white spot on his tummy. His eyes are pumpkin colored.  He is supremely cool, and seemed to realize I was there to help because he curled up in my lap like we'd known each other forever, and purred like a maniac. 

I eventually got him home and set him up in a very nice, spacious crate in the garage barn, so he would feel safe and not have to compete with the other cats.  He's afraid of all the other cats, but follows people around like "Hey!  Where're we going?  I'm coming with you, ok?".  Like he's known us forever.  Because he's black with pumpkin eyes, and it's near Halloween, his name is Ichabod.  We've been calling him Icky.

Time will tell as to whether he'll hang with us, but I'm hoping so.  Dang boy seems to be magical, because though the crate he's in is wire and fairly open, I don't think he can fit through the bars.  However, I'll see him in there, he'll stay in there for a long time, and then I'll turn my back and he'll be out and behind me.  Realizing he can't be "caged", I opened the door for him, but left the crate as a safe haven.  It is not unusual to see him in one place, however, and then look down suddenly and he's right beside me.  He's very sneaky.

And there you go.  Funny enough, I was thinking a couple of months ago that it was too bad we only have one black cat (a big boy named Percival), when I like them so much.  Then Sarahcat gave birth to a second black cat, and now we have Icky.  Very interesting.  Possibly I should muse on the fact that it's funny that I've never won the lottery?

'Till next time!

The Bad Hair Bunnies

You might remember that less than two weeks ago, the little bunnies looked like this:

They were smallerish and managableish, and they lived in an old cat litter box, because we give only the best here. 

Not anymore.

They have a case of "bad hair", because it sticks out all over the place.  Which is adorable, of course.

They also refuse to stay in one spot, and have had to move to a cage instead of their snazzy litterbox, because they wouldn't stay put.

They enjoy perching.

And leaving tiny pellets all over the house, which prompted my daughter to make a "diaper" for them, of sorts.

 

Note the extra room in the rear for "pellet storage". 

 

No, they did not like them. But my daughter got a kick out of them.

Personally, I think they look like fireflies with them on.  Festive fireflies.

The one thing that has not changed?  They still love mealtime.

They are good little bunnies, and sweet as can be.

Trying to Beat the Odds

I was curious the other day, and looked up how likely it is for our little bunny friends to actually make it with no mama.  Can you believe it's as low as a 10% success rate?  Neither could I, but there it was. 

We is sleeping

I would like to beat those odds, but two days ago, I could see I might not.   The littles were skinny and a bit dehydrated.

We is STILL sleeping

So I did what anyone would do--I went to mama.

Not my mama, though, she doesn't know what to do with bunnies.  I went to Daphne, THEIR mama, and brought her in to nurse them.  I thought that maybe, just maybe there was a chance that they weren't rejected totally, but instead she had been booting them out in mistake.  She can't really see, so perhaps they were "casualties" of her going in and out of the nest and not seeing the babies falling out.  I was hoping, though, if I could kind of hold onto her, that maybe I could just have her nurse them, if she'd be willing.

Honkshooo!  Honkshooo!!!

Thankfully, she was willing.  She knew exactly what to do, though the first time I had to hold her still for longer than she would have liked, and bribed her with an apple to keep her in one place.  Since then, she's been more patient with waiting for them to eat, and has been letting them nurse a little better. 

I have to hold her still, and she steps all over them all the time.  It's become apparent to me that Daphne is blind, probably completely, because all she does is react by smell.  When she gets in the nest box, it's all a mishmash of smells and she's like a bull in a china shop and she stands all over everyone.  Luckily those babies are squirmy, and they move to be in position, but I still have to lift her off someone from time to time.  But she stands somewhat patiently, and the babies usually have big tummies when she's finally had it.  If they don't, I supplementally feed them with what I have.

Sleeping pile o' bunnies

We've been doing this twice a day so far, and it seems to be going ok.  I have also discovered that little bunnies LOVE grape Pedialyte, so that's a good thing.  If they get really dehydrated (and they have been), I grape Pedialyte them up and they are so happy.  They slurp and slurp.  I've also changed over to a modified insulin syringe to feed them, and that seems to be better for them as well.

 So, like many things, we wait and see and hope.  Two of the three have opened their eyes, which I take as a good sign that we're developing normally.  I'm sure the third will follow soon.

I'll keep you posted!

He Gave His All

Never let it be said that Philip Johnny Bob doesn't give 110%.

Because he does.

He really does.

It's rooing time at Chicken Scratch, and for those of you not in the know, and wondering why the heck I'd do it when it's this cold, lemme 'splain:  The hair is shed when it's shed.  Though it may look like it's attached, it's not, and if I leave it alone, it will catch on everything, leaving big gobs of it everywhere, which the rabbits will eat and then die from, as they'll get wool block.  As it is, I have left it on too long because it is cold, and there were starting to be gobs on the cages.  Since that's dangerous, it was time.  Past time.

Buckley was rooed, Daphne was rooed the day before she gave birth, and PJB was done today.  Like his mama before him, he gives it all.  Some of them do.  But fear not, my friends.  I would never put him back outside in the cold in his pink skin. 

He got a sweater.

In this case a turtleneck, made out of an old sweater sleeve.

I think the color suits him.

The Circle Turns Again

The circle of life--we all know it.  There's a death, and there's new life.  It's a balancing of things.  On a farm, the circle is something you get to see a lot.  There can be a lot of death, and there can be a lot of new life.  I lost my Ginger on Saturday.  Today, the circle turned, and I gained some new lives.

Ok, I didn't personally gain those lives. They belong to Daphne:

Or Daphne-False-Alarm, as I'd come to call her.  Daphne's been insisting she's pregnant since early November.  I'd put a nest box in, she'd make it beautiful for a week, then she'd destroy it.  No babies. She didn't want Philip Johnny near her, she'd grunt and complain.  Twice I'd done this, and twice she would make the nest, act all grunty, and then destroy the nest.  No babies.  I finally put her with Philip Johnny Bob after Christmas and watched the mating this time.  She grunted at him and denied him the whole time.  I actually had to hold her still for it.  Apparently, she does not find PJB attractive.

"I do NOT find him attractive!"

Weeks passed and nothing.  No nesting, no nothing, just same old Daphne.  I figured it didn't take, and wondered what I would do, since she can't breed Buckley (her brother), and she didn't seem attracted to PJB.  Maybe the convent life was for her?  But then I brought her in yesterday to do her rooing.  She's skinny.  But her belly was big.  And kinda floppy.  So I put my hands on her to feel, and there was a-kickin' and a-turnin' going on in there like I'd never felt since Ellie had her babies.  Yeay!

HOW does she not find this attractive???

When she was done being rooed, I brought her out, put a box together with the matty hair I can't save for spinning, and left her be.  She dug in the box, ripped it up pretty well, and made a mess of things.  But lo and behold, this morning, she made 6 beautiful babies.  Three are black, and 3 are not.  They are wonderful and squirmy and hot.  And mama is doing just fine. 

"Because I am all that and a bag of CHIPS, baby!"

The circle has turned again for us at Chicken Scratch, and this is the part I like the most. 

And So the Story Goes

I went to the Fiber Festival yesterday.  I went alone.  I thought I'd just go, buy bunnies, look around, and leave.  NUH-UH.  It was the best day EVER!!!

I can't believe how much I enjoyed myself.  It was a wonderful day.  I got there at 9:30, and went right to buy a bunny from the breeder I'd made contact with earlier this month.  The breeder brought five rabbits, one which was a Chestnut doe that I thought looked wonderful from her pictures, and would really add to the bunnies here.  When I got there and saw them all, though, the decision was not cut and dry.  They were all gorgeous, and their fiber is amazing.  I instead bought a Chocolate Agouti doe, instead of the Chestnut.  What can I say?  She called to me.  Her name is Daphne, and I took some bad pictures of her.  Here they are: 

Daphne trying to escape

Daphne's rear end

Can you see the coloration in there?  It's so had to get a picture of.  She's a light grey brown with a slightly umber banding.  Beautiful!

As I was picking Daphne, I heard someone else call my name.  This guy:

This is Daphne's brother, Buckley.  His eyes are bluey-brown, which just knocked me out.

But I didn't buy him for his eyes.  He's an Opal buck, and his wool is this amazing light pearl grey with a slightly darker banding. 

Probably the best picture of him is this one, while he's in his snazzy cage:

They are works of art, they truly are.  And I wasn't the only one who thought so.  When I went back at the end of the day to pick them up, the breeder had sold every one of her rabbits.  So yes, they were gorgeous.

I did make the rounds to the other breeders as well--there were only 3 at the show.  One had a nice smoky-colored rabbit, but I didn't like the way she/he (I never got that far) was being kept.  The cages were too small to turn around in.  Not cool, in my opinion, so I passed that one by.  The third breeder, however, had Satin Angoras, which I would not have considered, as I like the English so much.  But when I saw the color on the little ones, that went right out the window. 

Meet Camille:

8 weeks old, and a redhead.  I'm a sucker for ginger hair in an animal, I really am.  Look at her banding:

She's already got an amazing crimp, and she's as sweet as pie and feisty, to boot. 

So, yep, I came home with three, not one.  Oops.  I did say I couldn't be held responsible if I were to go alone.  And I went alone.  I did not, however, buy an Angora wether, and I could have, for a very reasonable price.  So I think, if you put it all in perspective, I did very well.

What I did not do, though, was walk through, buy bunnies, and leave.  It was such a gorgeous fair, I spent every minute I could taking it all in.  There's something very appealing to me about a craft that has tools that are as beautiful as the finished product.  I bought a pair of carding combs to work with the fiber I have already from Ygraine, some amazing roving to work with, and a pair of drop spindles. 

The one on top is a heavier spindle for wools, and the one on bottom is a lighter spindle for the Angora.  They were both hand crafted, by two different vendors.  They are amazing.  I also bought a hand-thrown yarn pot, because it's a brilliant idea.  And it's beautiful. 

In all, a fantastic day.  I haven't enjoyed myself so much somewhere in a long time, especially not alone.  It took me two hours to get home because of traffic, and I was an hour and a half late for feeding animals (and I heard about that, believe me), but it was totally worth it.  Today I will get everyone settled in the garage-barn and then maybe I'll feel all the beautiful fiber that followed me home yesterday. 

Have a wonderful day, everyone.  I leave you with a picture of the "bunny train", out in the back, while I clean out their spots inside.