Michael Pollan

"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule." - Michael Pollan

Rabbit Sausage

I spent the day grinding up rabbit meat to give me a few months of minced meat.

Minced meat is one of those things that I love to have around. From one type of meat, you can produce so many different meals. The fact that we eat rabbit almost all the time (with an occasional pork interlude) means that variety of recipes is important. There are so many delicious rabbit recipes, but the ones with ground meat are often quickest and easiest.

So, when Abe butchered this week, I spent the rest of the day cutting up and mincing the whole lot (9 rabbits). I now have 9 bags of minced meat, each about 1.5 lbs. Should last a while.

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Rabbit Sausage

Tree Nursery

We have some trees coming up from seeds.

In preparation for future orchard terraces, we have been starting some trees from seed. There are various techniques to help that process along, like nicking the seed cover or putting them in almost boiling water or acid for a while to break the seed cover. We've also been taking cuttings from some trees and starting them that way. All in all, we have been experiencing a pretty good amount of success and had a mini orchard growing.

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Unfortunately, we had a minor tragedy occur. We had the nursery set up on a greenhouse shelf unit that we won in an Instructables contest. The shelf is great and has served us well for trees, vegetables, etc. A couple of weeks ago, however, we had a strong wind come up from a very unusual direction (the shelf is protected from all our usual winds) and blew the whole thing down. We lost everything and nearly broke Abe's heart.

But, we started over and now have several Honey Locusts and Mimosas (both nitrogen fixers, which are so important to have in an orchard) coming up. We also have lots of cuttings started again in some Willow tea (for the rooting hormone).

On a similar subject, we have set up an irrigation system for around the barn and corral. We want to grow trees that will provide shade and food for the animals. So far, we have a couple of mulberries and mesquite planted, along with a Honeysuckle vine. We have had to put protection around the ones that are small, as the chickens and guineas are already after them!

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Tree Nursery

Tent House

The north storage room is finally stuccoed and has already been taken over.

I started stuccoing the outside of the north storage right after finishing the inside (after the room was finished). However, something more important came up and I had to stop doing it to deal with that. Because the wall is always shaded, it never seemed important enough to go to the top of the list. And somehow, I never got back around to it.

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So, this past week, the guys that come up and help out when we need them finished off the job. It's now stuccoed and painted and all looks great. In fact, it looks good enough to be a house for some little creatures...

Leo and Nicky have been suggesting that it's time that they get their own house. I told them to look around and find a good site and we would figure something out. They decided on the spot in between the buttresses of the north storage room. Perfect.

The other day, we strung up a few old tent pieces and move in some "furniture" from the junkyard. They have a bed, TV, fridge, chair, table. They head off to their house in the morning and come back to the "shop" or "restaurant" for food or snacks. It's still very new to them, so I'm sure the novelty will wear off after a while, but for the moment our house is extremely peaceful.

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Tent House

Graduation

We had a wonderful graduation party for Leo and his friends.

A traditional graduation isn't always fun or meaningful for 6 year olds (or their moms?!), so instead we decided to just throw a party. We all got together, had food and cake, a bouncy castle, goodie bags and a gift for the graduating class (all 5 of them). It was a really fun day.

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The kids, of course, had a blast. We've been on vacation, so it was nice for them just to all play together. Add to that a giant, inflatable, bouncy wonder, and the day is pretty much guaranteed to go well. All of them bounced from beginning to end, stopping only when forced to come in for food and presents.

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Leo and the other 4 going into primary school each got a backpack with school supplies in it, ready for the new school year. Then there were goody bags for all the kids.

We also gave a gift and speech to the teacher, who won't be coming back next year. It's a shame to be losing her in the class room, especially as Nicky really liked her. However, she's still all of our neighbor, so won't be losing her company.

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Graduation

Baby birds

We have had some guineas and quail born ,and it seems like our whole property is chirping.

With wild baby birds in almost every tree and bush, it was hard to tell that the latest chirp came from our own birds. In fact it was Leo that first saw the baby quail. He noticed one of the females off her nest and acting peculiar (he checks on all the nests several times a day). When he went up to her, he saw two little yellow specks following her around. They are adorable.

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Apparently, it's a big deal that our quail are hatching babies. It seems that the broodiness has been almost completely bred out of quail, and just about every domestic quail out there is hatched in an incubator. So, the fact that three of our females have nests, one of which has already had a couple of the eggs hatch, seems to be a major breakthrough. They never showed signs of this when we had them in a cage, but as soon as we put them in the garden, with lots of space and cover, they all went broody. Awesome.

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As for the guineas, we had eggs under two ducks and now a guinea is also setting. One of the ducks was due and when Abe checked on her, there was a dead baby guinea in the nest. We're not sure if she stepped on him by mistake or whether she saw that it wasn't a duck and intentionally kicked out the cuckoo. Whatever happened, we removed all the eggs and set them up in a home-made incubator in the power house. We put bottles of hot water inside an ice-chest with a tray of eggs in the center. We then added a little 12 volt heater and a thermostat. We had three hatch, but no more followed. So we candled the rest, and none of them had anything in them (we were taking them out of a guinea nest we'd found while it was super hot, so maybe they cooked a little too much before we got them). Still, we are very happy with our three babies, who are all doing great. There are more due on Saturday.

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Baby birds

First Honey

Abe and Leo opened up the bees again yesterday.

I thought Leo might be scared after getting stung last time, but he did great. He was a little nervous, but his excitement easily overcame the fear. He did exactly what Abe told him to, passed his dad different tools and even operated the smoker for most of it. Abe did occasionally have to tell him to get out of the way, as he spent most of the time with his head inside the hive!

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So how is our new hive doing? Extremely well. They have now filled half of the barrel hive (see Honey Cow howto). They have a lot of brood and a decent amount of honey. We didn't rob the honey as the rain season hasn't really kicked off yet, which means the wild flowers haven't started. However, we did take just a little bit, so that we could all have a taste - delicious, dark, oak and acacia blossom.

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The bees remained super calm throughout the whole thing. Most of them were out working, as they did it in the middle of the day. When Abe started getting into the brood comb, the bees started to hum a pretty obvious warning, but said no more when he left their babies alone.

All in all a great check-up. So pleased to see the hive is strong and healthy.

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First Honey