A three-egg day

And if you have three chickens, that makes it a perfect day, no? At least chicken-wise.  

So we got the loose rabbits moved out of the bathroom. They seem happy with their bigger space, and the babies were interested in their old nest box. Smokey is still in a cage in our bathroom. I called around about the cost of rabbit neutering, and boy! it ranges from $80 to $200. Each. 

Yesterday was cloudy and dreary, then the skies opened up and poured rain, and the sun came out and it was lovely. I worked on the greenhouse some. Revamped the foundation wall. The guineas were tootling around, going "BuckWHEAT!" and looking for grain or bugs. I can't tell them apart, except for Mrs. Davis and Johnny-and-Edgar. No idea how many are hens.Their wattles are subtly different shapes and sizes, and only the girls buckwheat. Below, straight red wattles, and at the bottom, scooped wattles. I'll try to pay more attention, but tend to get sidetracked by polka dots and party hats.

Wear a mask

When you comb a goat.

Combing the goat

We had visitors today. A former owner of the school came by (he owned the school before the guy who sold it to us). He did a bunch of the renovations that the guy we bought from took credit for. Funny. And a neighbor brought his fir Christmas tree over for the goats to munch. I chatted with them both, learned some stuff about the place. C. decided to be a recluse.

We did not get the rabbits moved, dammit. Yes, they are amazingly cute, but they get into stuff and knock things over and leave marbles everywhere. It's getting old.

And while I was in there communing with them, I noticed that all the babies except Rue have fluffy sideburns. Just like their father. Uncomfortable epiphany! So I grabbed them up and got personal, and now that they are nearly grown, I can, with certainty, tell the boys from the girls. (Pathetic. Maybe it's the bifocals....) So, anyway, three boys and one girl, Rue. We don't have to change Martin's name after all. But we do have to have all the boys neutered if we want to keep them in a colony.

The cashmere goats are starting to shed, so we spend an hour or two combing Mo. He put up with it pretty well – it must feel good. We gave him a little grain and dried apples, and more when we finished.  We probably are a third done with his coat. Pants, his brother, is next. Below, you can see the coarser guard hairs and the cloud-like cashmere. Some of the guard hairs come off in the combing, and you have to remove them, either by hand or machine, from the fine stuff.

Azul gets in on the goodies.

What snow?

So the snow is gone. I can't deal with all this change happening all the time. – No, I can. I'm so ready for spring – lovely long warm days, nothing freezing and flooding, every room warm... There is still some ice over toward the barn, but, basically, the snow is gone. 49 degrees outside.

C. is starting plants all over the place. There's a big bin of seed-starting mix (garden dirt, rabbit/alpaca/goat poo, organic commercial potting soil) in the kitchen, and a stack of flats and pots. She says she might have started too many cabbages, below. You think? And she dropped a chunk of stove wood on her toe.

Yes, the rabbits are still in the bathroom. We're going to move them tomorrow, maybe. Below, I've cut some heavy-duty pallets (free!) in half to make a new foundation for the greenhouse. Should have it reassembled tomorrow, ready for cabbages.

Bunny pellets in my bathroom!

Here's an installment of bunny cuteness, which we've been lacking lately.

C. took the first four shots in the bunny room yesterday evening. The bottom photo is what I found in the bathroom this morning. C. moved the little fellows at 2 a.m. when their old room started to flood. (It's always something here.) This time it was rain from the patio pushing through the north door. The grate in front of the door was frozen, and the melting snow and new rain kept  mounting up. She woke me up to help, and I found myself bumbling around in the snow trying to get some drainage going. I failed. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dream, as bunny poop in the bathroom is real, and so are the bunnies.

This summer we address drainage around the building! Among many other things.

Plumber's surprise

Ah, a Sunday afternoon surprise. Like finding a Brussels sprout in your chocolate pudding. I was poking around in C.'s studio for an extension cord, and heard a funny noise... like water running. I hate it when that happens. Poked my head around the corner and saw water shooting out of a copper pipe, surrounded by ice spatters and cascades. So the old washer hookup, in the main electrical panel room off of the classroom with the stairs, had frozen and busted in the last few days.

I tried mightily to figure a way to patch it. (With plumbing epoxy, which I still can't find? With an old inner tube and pipe clamps? With a rainbow and jelly beans?) No, I have to go down into the crawl space and find a shut-off valve.

Man, I've grown to hate the crawl space. And it isn't really a crawl space. It's less than a crawl space. I call it that because I don't know the name for the kind of ground-covering action that is dragging yourself on your belly with your elbows. It's that kind of space. Plus there's asbestos, so I have to wear a respirator which makes my glasses steam up so I can't see a damn thing. And dragging myself along by my elbows is pretty much the exercise my doctor wants me to do to improve flexibility in my arthritic back, and it hurts like hell on the living room rug. It's worse in the crawl space in the dark with steamed-up glasses and Darth-Vader-respirator breathing and the floor joists just over my head and the sound of water escaping. I expect to have the old back freeze up, and, eventually, when C. notices I'm gone and finds me by the tiny pathetic tapping I've been making for hours under some far-off room, the paramedics will have to cut out a section of the floor to hoist me out in that Stokes stretcher. Of course, I'll be frozen to the foundation where I've wet myself, and they'll have to use the jaws of life to extract me.

So I put on my filthy crawl-space outfit I have hanging in the gym for just these occasions, and worm my way to a valve and shut it off. And worm my way back out and peel off my filthy crawl-space outfit and hang it up for next time.

The fire is warm. I have a hot cup of tea. One of the zucchini loaves has chocolate chips. Tomorrow I have to go back to work. The end.

More freakin' snow

It's cold, about 15 degrees, and small dry snowflakes are falling steadily out there. It's supposed to snow all day (3-5 inches worth). Then tomorrow, it'll be 40 and raining, if the weather nerds are correct. Crazy, capricious March. On the heels of crazy, capricious February.

We got wood yesterday. It was damn cold and took a while, since most of the wood was frozen hard to the ground. I smacked logs loose with other logs. We made pizza again afterward – C. did the crust and gathered the ingredients and I assembled. Delicious. Those funnel mushrooms we gathered last year are wonderful in all kinds of dishes.

Got a hankering for zucchini bread this morning, and found some canned zook in the pantry, and some dried, as well. I made four loaves, but it's not wonderful. Not much zucchini flavor (the pecans are good, though). Have to freeze more squash next summer as frozen makes better bread.

C. is cleaning the bunny room. The little guys are getting huge, nearly half the size of their ma. And soft... Papa Smokey is still on antibiotics and in our bathroom. He seems fine. It's good having him here – I chat with him, scratch between his ears and feed him goodies. He's friendly and appealing. We'll put him back with the others in a week or two.

Two eggs.