As the worm churns

Well, worm ranching may not be rocket science but I think I've managed to drown my wrigglers. I've got them new bedding and better drainage so we'll see if they dry out and rev. up. I have 2"x3"x1" plastic bins under the rabbit cages to catch the manure (and urine). I had set one aside for the worms but I didn't have good enough drainage. I think that the cost of converting all these bins to containers with catch buckets would not be cost effective so I'm going to look into finding a place in the ground to make a trench. That way I can water the rabbit manure down and wash out the ammonia so it doesn't burn the worms.

Sadly we lost a bunn last week. It was one of the new Flemish Giant babies - a light gray. He just didn't travel well and didn't recover. We were very sad and gave him a decent burial.

This winter it was as if someone pulled the plug on the economy of this town. Even I was surprised at how it happened overnight. Everyday Mr. Greenjeans is fearful of losing his job. Every week they lay off people both above him and under him.

Today I went to a yard sale at a neighbor's house - they are moving to AK. I picked up a food dehydrator (electric) for $3.00. I guess I've got Mrs. neighbor's attention as she is now looking like a survivalist nut (I taught her well). She wants us to go in on packaged food storage. I like our fresh food storage (I hear Chibi beginning to measure wheat into the mill, now) but I suppose long term packaged stuff has its place. You could bug out with it in its boxes. It's so expensive though!

Our garden land (and house and other land) sold to the neighbor's son just before the bust. He's now looking to sub-divide it for building lots. He hasn't (yet) given us permission to garden this year. I don't know what he's asking for the land. The time is ticking on the season here! I'm going to have to start thinking about raised beds in the lawn.

Boy am I pleased as punch to see a (little) veggie plot going into the White house lawn. I love our president and his family but I think he needs to think outside the box to turn the economy around. Payroll had to tell me I'd gotten my economic stimulus tax break - it's so small it wouldn't take us out to lunch at a fast food place! I am very grateful that we are both employed. We're saving money but we've only too recently been at the end of our financial rope to have much cushion.

Still Around

I noticed that Chili posted a comment about wanting to check in (what a sweetie). I checked in because it may be time to begin blogging again.

You know, some folks give a warning that they are taking a haitus, I just seem to waunder off...... must be a personality thing. (INFP for your Meyers-Briggs types).

No pictures today but here is some of what I've been doing: for one thing paying closer attention to my work and really ramping up the creativiy there. I am the keeper of tradition but the folks who pay my salery really like creativity as well.

Chibi and I have taken our rabbits on the road. We have started showing our rabbits and have purchased some more. Chibi's French Lop won Best in Show, and I have picked up another couple of Flemish for show. Beatrice is doing very well and is a constant companion in the house.

I didn't really intend to get into Holland lops but I went with a friend to get some bunnies for her from an old guy who was going out of rabbits. I saw that the little guys only have ice to suck on and the guy who owned them had run out of feed and was only feeding hay, and so I picked up some myself - he said others were interested. After thinking about it over the weekend he was out of town I went back and bought the rest and realized they hadn't been fed since the last time I'd visited. I now have quite a few Holland Lops.

The chickens are doing well and producing beautifully. I did a spring cleaning on the chicken coop this weekend and now have more brown compost materials than I can deal with so it's piled up in the corner of the property to age.

Nee has been accepted to all the nice private schools she's applied for. She has been awarded half tuition.... which leaves $24,000 a year. Mmmmm hope there are scholarships out there or its a no-go.

The wood stove has cut our gas bill to a fraction this winter. We've been buying wood from a guy who goes out to the bone yard at the factory he works for and cuts up shipping pallets to the proper length and takes out all the nails. I figure its a win-win scenario. He obviously needs the suplimental income.

The snow is all but gone except for the north side of the house. Mr Greenjeans is itching to go fishing as the ice breaks up. Related to this is that with my composters being full, and animals producing manure, I've started in on the worm farming end of things. I'll post more on that as it gets going. I think I started with too few worms for the job.

I'll be checking in with you all - even if I'm not blogging every day.

Big Bunnies have big friends

For some reason, Beatrice loves dog food. She got in trouble trying to push the alpha female Border Collie out of her food, but while Bernese Mountain Dog, Toby isn't thrilled, he allows her to eat out of his bowl with him.

Her abcesses are getting better. She was not doing well with 'fingers' of abcesses spreading and Mr. Greenjeans reminded me that we have a resivour of information and remidies in homeopathy left over from when we had children and no health insurance. We looked up abcesses, choose Mercurium as a remidy and Beatrice is doing better than she had with surgury. Within 3 days she was zooming around like she hadn't done in months, eating as she should, and the abcesses had shrunk. They are not totally gone, but MUCH smaller.

Dog meets webcam

We got a web cam for Nee and us for Christmas so we can stay better connected with one another. The dogs all hear and recognize her voice and the Border Collie caught glimpses of an image on sceen, but in the end her nose told her that it was all fake.

Bunnday Monday

Beatrice is working hard on recovery.

She did have to return to the vet because the infected ear also came with an abcess in her neck under the ear. She stopped eating and started snorting and having trouble breating deeply. She had surgury, and now has a shaved spot in her dew lap and is getting antibiotic shots in her bunny butt everyday.

Her career as a diva show rabbit has been put on hold for a while.

Come tumble compost with me

As Mr. and Mrs. Garden have moved to their smaller house, they have sold me this composter for $150.00. Of course the one I'm buying is under snow at the moment but if there is another nice day tomorrow, Mr. Greenjeans and I are off work together and can try and pick it up. This is great as all my other compost means are full and the chicken coop needs cleaning.

Have any of you used one of these? How do you like it?

Our food storage feasting today includes leftover lentil soup and cornbread made from the ground corn from the garden. I think it is the grind available from the country living corn auger that has the sweet corn making much better cornbread than polenta.

Soap Making Day

We have finally used the last of the powdered laundry soap we made. While it stored nicely, we didn't like it because it left a white powdery residue on the clothes and the grated bar didn't dissolve well in the laundry. The recipe we're trying today comes from The Tipnut and is as follows:

2 C. bar soap grated (1 bar Fels Naptha = 2 C grated)
1 Qt. boiling water
2 C. Washing Soda (made by arm and hammer but is different than baking soda)
2 C. Borax
2 gal. water
Boil the water in a large sauce pan. Add the grated bar soap and stir until dissolved. (This takes a while!)

Add the dissolved soap and water to a 3 gal pail and then add the extra water. We used one gal boiling water, added the other ingredients, stirred, and topped it off with one gal cold water.

Issues we encountered were that the bar soap irritated Chibi's hands when grating (as the packaging said it would). Perhaps use a bit of paper bag when grating. We had planned on putting it into an old liquid soap bottle we'd saved to the occasion but when it cools, the soap forms a firm gel and I wasn't sure about getting it back out of the bottle. We ended up keeping in the pail used to mix.

We do add just a bit of oxyclean to the laundry soap because we tend to get our clothes really dirty with animals and work. I do think it would be good to rinse the clothes with a bit of vinegar to get rid of any soapy residue.

I couldn't find the materials in town and so ordered a quantity from soaps gone buy (much better prices than Leamans for the same products).

The food storage feast for today is Lentel Soup using the Christmas ham bone, carrotts, onion, ect.