Babies?

Early on Saturday morning (8/27), Beatrix began to deliver bunnies.  This first litter was not successful; out of 5 births, she killed two of them and then did not care for the remaining three.  Her lack of motherhood instincts sent me to the web to see what might have gone wrong and how I may help her next time.  In a few months, she will get one more shot at a litter; my thought was that she may have been two young (5 months); 6 months for the bigger rabbits is the norm and the Dutch breed is a bit smaller.  We'll try one more time when she is 7 months.  If that litter is a failure, then she'll go to a new home as a pet or to freezer camp.

Fall temps and feel seem to be in the air and it would appear to be a good time for lettuce and swiss chard; temps are good, lack of water is not.  *sighs* These'll go into the ground within the next few days.  Today I had one mid-day client so had the morning to clean and this afternoon I am thinking of dinner and what to do next... Well, talk to you was top on the list.

Since the mini-rex (our velveteen rabbit) really needs to go to a home, I used Ebay classifieds to create this ad - what do you think?

Minirex Flyer 8.29.11

Pigs

Our pig is going to butcher next month.  While I have some experience with beef, pork is something new; both at the butcher shop and cooking.  While the below is pretty detailed, I'm comfortable with pork chops, roasts, bacon (belly cuts), ribs, and sausage.

Ronnie's step dad was known county wide for his sausage recipe - sadly, it went with him to the grave.  Anyone have a recipe to share?

More babies

This evening, while watering and checking on the rabbits, I noticed that Beatrix (the dutch rabbit), had pulled hair to line her nest.  Babies may arrive tonite or tomorrow.  Yippee!

Oh, and here are pictures from the Californias - they look like neekid mole rats!

California baby rabbits

Pickles and other goodness

I'm sure everyone knows about the earth quake that hit in Virginia yesterday; others felt shaking and I missed it!  Was finishing up a massage and missed it!  K15 was at the highschool working on computers and felt the floor shake.  A17 was at home, in the kitchen; she did not feel the floor shake yet heard the stuff in K15's room (which is above the kitchen) shake.  At first A17 thought Annabelle (our ghost) was being super active and was frightened.  When she learned it was an EQ, she was not concerned!  LOL  I find that funny.

So today I am wondering about aftershocks and my whole prepper status. I feel pretty good about where our house is situated and a little concerned about water.  It is gravity flow and 'should' work just fine without electricity; still gonna set additional water aside for just-n-case.

One could easily be consumed by prepping and worrying; worrying can paralyze and I am not going to spend my time worrying.  What does one do instead?  Why, can pickles of course! And do laundry, clean rabbit cages, etc.  And then go to work this afternoon.

My canning recipe comes from Better Homes and Garden's canning magazine.  I'd like to share it with you here yet fear I'll violate a law and people will get cranky.  *sighs*  Oh, I do have pictures and a recipe to share... later though.  Need to get ready for work.  =)

Selling

The california 'babies' are growing fast, especially in the last week or so.  I've done quite a bit of reading and, aside from placing them each in their own cage (not enough room for that), the advise from print and other breeders is to feed them rabbit pellets that are comprised of at least 18g protein and this little concoction: equal parts oats, barley (for soups), black oil sunflower seeds (BOSS) and flax seed.  Mix and add 1 tbsp daily with pellets.  I had everything except the barley; per the 'test kitchen' (rabbits), it is a great success.

With rabbits running out the ears (no pun intended), I decided to post on Craigslist and Ebay Classifieds. So far, we have had one reply to the Craigslist post.  *cross your fingers*

Of work vans and rabbits

 Last week Ronnie and I had an adventure.  He purchased a 2001 GMC Savanah cargo van (complete with shelves already installed) from a gentleman on Craigslist and yesterday we drove to Rocky Mount to pick it up.  This van needs a new fuel filter, which we knew about ahead of time, so pick up involved borrowing a heavy duty truck and trailer.  The trip down was uneventful, our loading experience while there was .... interesting.  Alan (the seller) is a great guy and was extremely helpful in getting this cargo van rolled/come-along cranked on to the trailer.  In the midst of all this we punctured a tire and had to change it before finishing the load up.

Long story short, it took about 2 hours to get this bad boy loaded up.  Allen even texted us to check on our progress.  Thanks Alan - we love this truck!!

This brings me to rabbits; it'll make sense in a minute.  As you know, I have been waiting several MONTHS for Mark to bring me a male to go with my California doe.  Nothing, nada, zilch.  Ronnie is friends with his wife and he called to catch up on the news and to ask her to follow up with Mark about this rabbit.  Since Mark is not good on follow through, I asked Ronnie to stop at this rabbitry we pass every time we drive to Roanoke - We pass this same place on the way to Rocky Mount.  He raises New Zealands and American Chinchilla's, which when bred together, make a Californian.  We walked away with a beauty of a buck. 

Would you believe that when we arrived home at 9:45 that evening (we left for Rocky Mount at 11:00 am), Mark had called and said that he would bring the buck by?  LOL  I did not believe that Mark would be by but went ahead with my evening...carrying a small glimmer of hope.  That hope blossomed into truth and he brought the buck by to spend the night.  This is not the buck we get to keep though... I am still waiting on that.  In exchange for the studd service I told Mark he could take one of the 8 1/2 week old buck's from the California's first litter. 

That was on Friday (8/19)...we still have the buck.  LOL

Mark was impressed that I was able to purchase a New Zealand from the rabbitry - Mark had been trying for several months to acquire one to no success.  Hmmm. 

Free Fall

Its amazing how, when one is able to set their own hours, time management skills go out the door.  My energy levels are higher than in the past, though still low.  *whew*  Slow and steady wins the race... that's my story and I am sticking to it!

Any tips on how to get out of this funk that I have slipped into?  Perhaps feeling overwhelmed may be a better word.

The Criminalization of Poverty

I had something else planned to post for today... until I read this. There are some blogs that I cannot read everyday; those links are moved to the side column under the heading "Must Remembers" and are read when I am ready to take the time and have the energy to not let the drag me down. Reading the real life decline of our society as a whole is disturbing and paralyzing. There are many days when I do not want to read what is going on in the 'outside' world; stick to canning, gardening, and rabbits.

WTH are we allowing? Inaction is non verbal consent; this scares me.

Barbara Ehrenreich on the Criminalization of Poverty: "

From Counterpunch, Ehrenreich, who, along with Jonathan Kozol and the late Joe Bageant and a vanishingly few others, tells the true story of American poverty more clearly than anyone else explores how we punish the poor::

The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, leading to the arrests of several middle-aged white vegans.

One anti-sharing law was just overturned in Orlando, but the war on illicit generosity continues. Orlando is appealing the decision, and Middletown, Connecticut, is in the midst of a crackdown. More recently, Gainesville, Florida, began enforcing a rule limiting the number of meals that soup kitchens may serve to 130 people in one day, and Phoenix, Arizona, has been using zoning laws to stop a local church from serving breakfast to homeless people.

For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization, and one is debt. Anyone can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors' prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can't pay fines for things like expired inspection stickers may be made to 'sit out their tickets' in jail.

More commonly, the path to prison begins when one of your creditors has a court summons issued for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another, such as that your address has changed and you never received it. Okay, now you're in 'contempt of the court.'

Or suppose you miss a payment and your car insurance lapses, and then you're stopped for something like a broken headlight (about $130 for the bulb alone). Now, depending on the state, you may have your car impounded and/or face a steep fine -- again, exposing you to a possible court summons. 'There's just no end to it once the cycle starts,' says Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. 'It just keeps accelerating.'

The second -- and by far the most reliable -- way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor succumbs to racial profiling, but whole communities are effectively 'profiled' for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor. Flick a cigarette and you're 'littering'; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you're displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect. And don't get grumpy about it or you could be 'resisting arrest.'

In what has become a familiar pattern, the government defunds services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Generate no public-sector jobs, then penalize people for falling into debt. The experience of the poor, and especially poor people of color, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks. And if you should try to escape this nightmare reality into a brief, drug-induced high, it's 'gotcha' all over again, because that of course is illegal too.

One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today, exactly the same number of Americans -- 2.3 million -- reside in prison as in public housing. And what public housing remains has become ever more prison-like, with random police sweeps and, in a growing number of cities, proposed drug tests for residents. The safety net, or what remains of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.

It is not clear whether economic hard times will finally force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment. With even the official level of poverty increasing -- to over 14% in 2010 -- some states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty, using alternative sentencing methods, shortening probation, and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missing court appointments. But others, diabolically enough, are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of 'crimes,' but charging prisoners for their room and board, guaranteeing they'll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.

Here's the question - as more of us become poor, do we fight the criminalization of poverty, or do we accept it?

Read the comments on this post..."

Its raining!

A steady, ground soaking rain – perfect!  While waiting to see if I am needed in the office, dishes are being washed, I writing to you, and then out into the rain to refill the timothy feeders for the rabbits.  Beans need to be canned, squash pickled, and bread baked.
Speaking of rabbits, I separated 4 into a cage of their own.  Did not really check to see which were boys and which were girls as they are still too young for it to make a difference.  I hope that Mark comes through with a male for my California so I can continue this line of breeding.  Beatrix is due next week.  *whew* 
Tomorrow afternoon I head to Dabney Lancaster Community College for K15’s Governor School orientation.  Should be ‘delightful’. 
I am off to finish chores.  If not needed in the office, work at the spa will begin at 11:30.
Ciao!

Hippity Hoppity

Today is a slow day, as far as ‘jobs’ go.  There is plenty to do at the house; which I am not getting done whilst sitting here writing.  =)
Thought I’d give you a quick update on the bunnies.  The book says they will be ready for freezer camp (4-5 lbs) by 8 weeks; these are 6 weeks old.  I cannot see them putting on that much more weight in two weeks.  Perhaps a scale investment would be appropriate?   I am hoping that a friend of mine, before they move to Canada, will help me with freezer camp preps; he has experience with raising and butchering rabbits (humane ways).  Oh, this cage is much larger than it looks (2’x3’).  When I am outside, they all rush to the door, looking for snacks.  Silly rabbits.
Two weeks ago we put Beatrix (dutch female) in with Dutch (Dutch male) and if it took, she will deliver a litter on or about August 16th.  *crosses fingers*  We’ll see what happens!
Have a great day today.  Got lots to do around the house and I will check in a bit later.
Ciao!