One Lucky Bunny

Our newest addition to Achorn Farm. Meet Willow formerly know as "a meat rabbit". Last fall a few rabbits escaped and rather then capture we let them free range outside and in the barn for the remainder of the season through winter. Maine Man thought there were only males so there was not worries until we found this sweet thing along with a few others in the barn. Something, MOST likely one of these pesky cats pulled them from their nest. They were hypothermic and a few of them were all staved up. Willow was the SOLE survivor and now has become a pet residing IN my house. Hmmmm, our philosophy has come to not keep anything that doesn't serve a purpose. I usually say if we can't eat it we don't want it but occasionally something wins you over. Willow's purpose is for loving, snuggling, and her poo will be good for the garden. That works, right?

Weekly Summary

Maine Man suggested I do a weekly post summarizing the chaos of our lives. Not sure this will be a regular thing but this was a perfect week to do.

* Kitten takes ride to school with MM to pick up kids......under suburban. Amazingly unharmed.

* Rabbits get loose for 282nd time this summer. MM open fires and guess what we have for dinner.

* Boxer injures 1 duck and kills 2. Last week she killed a rabbit.

* Pumpkin & Ham don't go well together! Pigs.....Pumpkin some how gets into Ham's pen and Ham nearly shred her to pieces. Never seen anything like it! THANK GOD MM had not left for work yet!

* Flower Girl & I were struck with a horid gastroenteritis.

* MM was down with a nasty respiratory illness.

Those were just a few of our finer moments so far this week, still have 4 days left.

You had to hear MM narrate of the kitten story, I laughed until tears. Glad the little man was safe.

As for rabbit meat, we all love it. I think it tastes better then chicken. The first time MM cooked it he used a slow cooker. It was ok. Along with it he cooked a duck. FG's exact words were "I liked the bunny better!" I had to agree. I really did not care for the duck. Second time around he coated it and baked it in the oven, yummy!

P.S. BOXER FREE FOR THE TAKING!

Bunny Fun

The TOP 10 lame excuses why I have neglected blogging this summer.

1. The kids are out of school!
2. Maine Man has been working days!
3. Their is always work to be had in the garden!
4. We have TOO many d*@$ animals!
5. The lawn always needs mowing.
6. There is 6 cord of wood screaming "cut me, stack me."
7. Facebook is distracting.
8. Kids birthdays, pig roasts, day trips, camping.
9. Cooking, Dishes,...Laundry.....A maid would be nice but I'd settle with a dishwasher.
10. I'm SO stinkin' TIRED!!

Stay tuned life will be changing real soon kids are back in school, John will be back to his regular schedule and we are in the process of downsizing animals.

P.S. I contemplated titling this post Farm P%@# but MM thought it may attract the wrong audience. Ha I agree, never thought of it. He is so darn logical! It would not be the first time my impulsiveness has got me in trouble.

Sunday Stills ~Yellow

It's that time of the week again. For anyone interested in joining along Ed's Sunday Still challenge please go over and visit. It has been a lot of fun !

Maine Man found the little bugger above in the middle of the road. It took residence in the barn for a few days in the kids catch & release tank, then into the back pond. In the 2 1/2 years that we have lived here I've only seen one turtle. It was a huge snapper by the duck pond and it was gone when I returned with my camera. I love having fresh cut flowers overflowing in canning jars and/or vases throughout the house. That is exactly what I did with those yellow blossoms. Today the kids and I went unintentional lawn saling. On the way to the grain store we came across some bargains. 10 glass vases for $1.00, a handful of spice jars for 10 cents. The kids bought a double seated wooden swing with intentions of hanging from a tree. I think it will serve us well by the pond. Today I constructed a trellis for our peas out of some netting I bought at a lawn sale last year for a quarter. MM said "what are you going to do with that?" Ha...it took me a year but I found a use. I will post a picture as soon as I take one. It took me nearly 3 hours to construct and a nearly severed thumb to complete but by geesh I did it! I am not handy by nature that's FOR sure, unlike Maine Man. There is not a thing that man can't fix or do. Joking about the severity of my finger, just a nasty cut from a hand saw. Probably a good thing I wasn't able to start the chainsaw.

I know they are not yellow but they just the cutest creatures! Their Momma had 12 kits. I was surprised because it was her first litter. 2 did not survive, we bottle fed them for a few days and kept them on a heating pad in the house. We did our best.

As with everyone this time of year life has been so busy. Days are not long enough to complete the chores at hand. Most days I am able to roll with it but some days I am simply overwhelmed. The kids annual birthday party is next Saturday and we will be having a pig roast for my brother's 40th at the end of next month. So if your wondering where I am I'm either in the garden or cleaning up my messy barn. :)

Spring Fishing

What is a dad to do when he is home alone with his boy on a warm spring day? Updates

• Animals: Returned "Romeo" a boar we borrowed. He arrived on April 1st and returned home this past Sunday. We think he did his job, he at least gets an "A" for effort. We are hoping our two sows will be having piglets in July/August. Not ideal timing. Next time around we will plan for spring piglets rather then fall.
• We hope to get our electric fencing up within the next couple weeks and get some cattle out in the pasture.
• Broilers are really close to freezer camp. Maine Man has almost completed the plucker. He just needs to attach motor. Pictures and post to follow.
• We have babies! One of our does had a litter. Not sure how many? I'd say at least 4 by the picture. I did not want to disrupt them so I just put my camera in the hole of the box and snapped away until I caught a glimpse of them.
  

• Garden is coming along. We have lots more planting to be had over the next few weeks. The greenhouse is another project that needs to be done. Not sure when we will have the time. One of MM's buddies gave him plastic for it. Only problem is that it is 3 feet too short in width. Not sure what we are going to do with that. Too bad it wasn't too short in length instead. That would have been an easy fix.

• Food: I have been doing a little experimenting (imagine that!) with raw milk. This week I made butter for a first. Skimmed 1 gallon, end result about 2 tablespoons. It was very tasty. Note to self: don't bother unless you have a milking cow in your backyard an an abundance of cream. I also attempted to make yogurt. Bought the culture at the natural food store and incubated it using a crock pot with water. Did not come out very well. Consistency was good but it seemed a bit tart. Not sure what I did wrong. I never buy plain yogurt, just flavored so it could have been that? Will experiment again sometime!
• With some of that milk I had to use up I also made this grape nut pudding recipe. It is at the bottom of that post. MM ate it up in no time. If you are looking for a really good chocolate cake recipe with peanut butter frosting this is what I made for Leah's birthday. I made it for the first time last year for MM's birthday, it is now a family favorite!
• Leah has been cooking up a storm. She nearly killed me school vacation week. I think I gained 10lbs and had a bad case of dish pan hands. Damn I need a dish washer! It is the top of my I NEED list! This past weekend she made some really yummy peanut butter balls and she plans to post the recipe sometime soon on her blog.

• Community Treasure Chest aka the "tote" from here on out. That adventure has REALLY taken off. I started with one tote in circulation but others wanted to join along so I started a second. It has been SUCH A SUCCESS! My buddy Miki is starting a third except she is putting a little twist on it making it a couples tote. I have received great feedback from the members. Everyone so far has been happy with the goodies they have scored. SO VERY excited at the responses! I think I may have even inspired a women I work to put one together with some of her friends. If you haven't considered getting one of these started in your neck of the woods I suggest you get on it.

Sunny Sunday

It was a beautiful weekend here on the farm and everyone agreed as evidence by the following photos.All the animals had the oppurtunity to get out of the barn on both days. The goats came out on leashes and they were groomed and hooves were trimmed.The chickens free ranged. It will not be long before they are in their chicken tractors. When the gardens goes in there will be no more free ranging until fall. Otherwise they will DEVASTATE the gardens.Only in Maine could you where the outfit above and below in the SAME day!This is not a normal occurrence. At least when I am around. MM is a little more laid back. I have PTSD from working in the Emergency Room too many years. When I came home from running a quick errand this is what I found. I was ok with Luke driving..........but when I saw Leah I was frightened. The kid has NO FEAR. She is a WILD child. Everyone has one, well she is mine! Yesterday we went to a sliding party at some friends just down the road. They have an AWESOME hill just outback of there house. I had barely said hello to my friend and there goes Leah flying down the VERY steep hill on a saucer hooting and hollering. People were looking around like, who's kid is that? She is SO me when I was 16 but she is ONLY 6! Yikes...I think we are going to be in for it!
Another thing about her is she will only learn when SHE is ready. Just today she learned to ride a 2 wheel bike by the assistance of her big brother and his buddy. They made treats for her and bribed her than they.....

Scored her abilities. Hey....What are you boys doing on my Momobile?

Later this afternoon. We tapped our 2 maple trees for a first time.

Maine Man drilled the holes.


Luke hammered the spickets in.And sap started running immediately. The kids were ecstatic!Leah hung the jugs. We planned to hang buckets but I saw over at Sugar Creek that they used gallon jugs. I thought that was mighty clever so we borrowed their idea.
Thanks SC!Within minutes we had this. We have 4 gallon jugs out.
Just before bed the kids conned me into going and checking how much we had one last time.

Then we finished the night making sugar cookies. They were they some yummy!

Hare Today......Gone Tomorrow

Today MM picked up our 1st ever meat rabbits, New Zealand/Californian crosses. Interestingly they are not as available in Maine as we expected. We have 3 does and a buck. The does are 2 months old so we need to wait until the end of June before we can breed them. Their gestation period is approximately 1 month and rabbits are best to eat between 4-6lbs so we have a ways to go.

Any suggestions for a name for our buck?

Then we had a early delivery...



102 Khaki Campbell's (egg laying ducks) Can you believe these little babies made it all the way from Pennsylvania in this box? No fatalities thus far. They are hardy birds! The kids have enjoyed having these little peeps in the wood stove room. So have the cats...

At all times there has been at least 1 cat standing guard. Just waiting for the kids to leave the cover open.

We will keep a dozen for ourselves and the rest are for sale. Any Mainers interested leave me a comment or you know my number!

P.S. Maine Man's idea for the title...not mine!