Homestead and Folly

It is one thing to read that rabbit meat is the most efficient source of protein and makes the most sense to raise, it is another thing to chomp down on a piece of rabbit meat. It is a challenge to eat something new and a challenge to eat something I found cute and cuddly. We didn't try to eat our rabbit meat right away but instead got some emotional distance from it by keeping it in the freezer for a few weeks. Try as we might, we couldn't help but get attached to these animals, we know they will be food, but we can't help interacting, talking to them and getting to know the ones that stand out. I was determined to get used to rabbit meat, never having tried it. I took some out of the freezer and figured I would make something that would be so yummy, I wouldn't even know the rabbit was there, rather than focusing right off on it's unique qualities. It was my husband's turn to cook and we decided on our favourite curry recipe.  It tasted wonderful but I...

 A few years ago I ordered slips for sweet potatoes from a seed catalogue. They came on time and with a warning that said not to plant them right away but to get them used to the air and the light gradually. I did that and then planted them one warm evening. They grew and I thought I had successfully planted sweet potatoes but then over the next few days I watched as every single one of them died. After testing the soil and re-thinking all of the steps, and receiving some advice, I realized I hadn't let them adjust long enough. I ran across an Internet article on starting your own sweet potato vine indoors and after reading that, I can't believe it hadn't occurred to me before. This year I am determined to do it and as I wait for spring, I have started a sweet potato growing indoors. I read several blogs on how to accomplish this and it sounded so easy. Most people said it is "so easy a child could do it" and that many people remember starting vines...

  Chicken Pinata We finally got rid of that trouble-making rooster, Thomson. He was terrorizing the hens and they didn't want to go lay eggs in their nesting boxes. They would cower in the corner. He wouldn't just mount them but would stand on them at length while he ate supper, until our head rooster would chase him off. He is now a six pound roasting chicken in our freezer.  Today the chickens seem much more comfortable, even if it it was 14 below freezing this morning.  I brought them some kale and hung it from a rope. They all gathered around and munched it up, making it swing back and forth, playing chicken pinata and buck-bucking, glad to have some greens. Surely our egg production will go up without the "hell in a feather boa" rooster to terrorize them. Like Earl, Thomson had to die.

Pile of baby bunnies I wish I could proclaim "spring has sprung!" like some of my twitter followers, but the best I can do is "surely winter can't last forever, right?!"  I am clinging to the small things like the time changing and being able to do a few extra chores in the evening, baby bunnies, an occasional sunny day when the temperature hovers around freezing instead of twenty below, and the sound of the woodpeckers that have started to return. The signs are subtle but they are there if you look for them. I have a lot of outdoor projects and plans but I am waiting until the weather turns warmer,even a little. It isn't that I couldn't build a window box right now outside but when the weather gets nice I will enjoy it. I could go fix the flapping plastic that mostly blew off of one of my hoop houses in the last big storm, but lately it is all I can do, to do just the necessary chores, and that is it. There are some days I spend all day outsid...