The arrival of rabbits

On Saturday morning, before our second round of coffee, we had rabbits in our rabbitry. The breeder (Brenda) I was in contact with told me she'd be available Saturday morning or else some time late this week to next week. I really wanted to start this project, the sooner the better!

Jake and I opted to take 2 extra bucks for "harvesting" later this winter, in addition to our breeding trio. A breeding trio means 2 does (girls) and 1 buck (boy). This team should provide us with nearly all the meat we and Kai can eat in a year. So we took home 5 rabbits that day. It's been no more challenging than chicken care, and once I get this down the routine will go much smoother. I also plan to switch the rabbits from a pellet diet to a grain/hay diet. A diet change will take months because rabbits have a delicate digestive system and I don't want to upset it by to much change too quickly.

I did hesitate to name them because you don't name your food... however, we will have these guys for 3+ years and I refuse to call them by a number. When it comes time for their death it will be difficult like Quizzie's but no less appreciated. But that's in the future and it can stay there for a while.

Here's the new crew!

Confetti- our baby doe, she won't be ready for breeding until sometime this spring, May probably.

Boy-girl-boy. These three are from the same litter, we are going to keep the girl as part of our breeding trio but her brothers will meet the stew pot in about a month. For now they can be kept in the same cage, because they are too young to mate but boys reach maturity before the girls do so they will have to be moved out soon.

Another shot of Confetti, she is a tri color white-tan-black. She doesn't have many black spots though. She's nice a bit shy but will allow me to pet her. I have to work with her a bit so she's more comfortable being held.

This is Clove, she is Confetti's mom. She wasn't handled much as a young doe so she doesn't like being held. Her nails are stupidly long so I trimmed them today. A few I cut bit too short and they bled, which further reaffirms that I am out to torture her I am sure. See how her but is backed up to the corner of the cage and climbing up it almost? I feel bad for her because she is so scared, but I keep talking calmly to her and petting her so she knows I am not out to harm her.

This is Chestnut, he's a young buck about 6 months old. I think he was a 4H bunny or he was shown a lot because he loves to be petted and he just wants attention. It's rather cute. Ches will come up to the cage door and stand up tall to get noticed. Also he and Kai are best buds, Kai will clean his head and nuzzle him and he just takes it in stride, he'll even give her kisses back. I have a video of them with the cage door shut, but now every time I come in to give food and water he pokes his head out to nuzzle the dog. He is too cute and just look at those ears!

Here's the video of the rabbitry, featuring Kai and Ches.




With any luck I'll breed Clove with Ches this week and we'll have some babies by the end of January! I want to wait until Clove is a bit more settled and not so terrified of me, but that may never happen so all I can shoot for is comfortable.

Holiday Spirit

It's taken me about a week to write this post, simply because I had to come up with the right words.

Last Saturday my door bell rang, a woman about my size with long wavy brown slightly graying hair stood at my doorstep. She had a snowman print gift bag with red tissue coming out the top. I thought, "oh she's got the wrong house.." I learned her name was Susan, and she knew she was a stranger but she just had to thank me. I was puzzled at this point because... thank me? For what? Susan wanted to thank me for the joy the front garden gave her, how happy she was every time she walked by. Our conversation was brief, she said it was all explained in a letter inside her gift bag. I hugged her, wished her Merry Christmas and went inside.

I'll include the letter in it's entirety behind this cut, since it's about a full typed page and I don't want it to take up my whole blog page.

Red Bees and Red Honey

I got sent this article from a friend and thought it was kinda mind boggling. Apparently in Red Hook (Brooklyn) beekeepers are finding RED honey. Like maraschino cherry red! What struck me as funny are the beekeepers, they cannot see why a bee would go and eat such a thing. There is a maraschino cherry factory within range of flight for the bees. Bee's are opportunistic, whatever is easiest and calorie dense they will go to it... red dye and all.

The beekeepers make it sound like, how could they? or don't they know it's junk food?  Of course not! If humans lived "hive-minded" and without grocery store's like bee's do, we wouldn't hesitate at a bright red sugar flowing river of calories, we would dive right in! It sucks though for the honey production because apparently it tastes like cough medicine, syrupy and too sweet.

At the end of the article one of the beekeepers makes mention of the color of the bees returning with this red syrup inside them. "When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings," he said. "They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful." 


The Mystery of the Red Bees of Red Hook article at The New York Times.

picture is also from the article.

Winter Bee Update

Well so far our girls have held up against the cold. Before winter started we had a good 60,000 strong hive. By the time spring comes we'll be down to around 20,000 (if they make it to spring). A lot of bees die in the winter! Since bee's don't fly when it's below 45-50* outside, all those dead bees pile up inside the hive. Jacob took a coat hanger and bent it into a make shift 'J' shape and used it to pull all the dead bees from the bottom screen of the hive.

This is what he got out.

This is a one gallon Folgers coffee container, now keep in mind this. A pint sized canning jar only 1 inch filled with dead bees is roughly 100 bees. How many do you think is in that red can?

We're guessing somewhere around 10,000. Yikes. Since this is our first year beekeeping, we don't have a reference. Is this normal? No clue, trial by fire.

In other bee news, I made some bee patties today. This is extra food as a "just incase" they don't have enough honey.

For one patty the recipe is:

2 c. Drivert Sugar or Bakers sugar the names are interchangeable (white sugar will do, but drivert is closer to honey chemically... so they say?)
1/2 c. honey (melted so it's runny... it incorporates with the sugar better)
2 T. Mega Bee or other pollen substitute (bee's need protein too... not just sugar)
5-7 drops of peppermint oil (this helps with winter trachea mites)

Jacob put two of these patties on the bees on November 27th. He checked the bees today because the weather is warmer and less likely to shock the hive. They have plenty of patty left and seem to be doing well.

I store the patties in a long container with Drivert sugar inside it. The patties are really sticky so I store them in the sugar. This way sugar will stick to the patty and help dry it out and harden it up so it's easier to handle. When the patties are fresh they are like wet sticky play-dough. After about 1-2 weeks in the sugar they firm up and look like sugar frisbees.

With luck we'll be able to pull them through the winter and expand our hive to two. We also need to find someone willing to let us put a hive on there land. I would love it if we could get someone in town, since bee's do better in city (more variety and all.)

Turkey Day Recipes

I wanted to get some of these documented so next year I didn't loose them to bookmark oblivion. Some of them are family recipes and the measurements are all fudged. I've been working on this post for a few days now, mostly because I'm lazy.... Here we go!

Pumpkin Pie

1.5 c. pumpkin pure`
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
2 Tbl. AP flour
pinch salt
1.5 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. cloves
2 eggs
3/4 c. heavy cream
1/4 c. milk

oven: 450* then 350*
Mix Dry's, Mix wets. Add dry's to wet's mix until smooth.  Add mixture to pie crust, bake 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350* bake additional 40-45 minutes until a knife in center comes clean.

Whipped Cream

1 c. heavy cream
3 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat cream for 30 seconds then add sugar & vanilla. Continue beating until stiff peaks form.


Turkey Brine

2 1/4 c. salt
1 c. sugar
1 Tbl. molasses
8 c. water
5+ garlic cloves, crushed or 3-4 Tbl. garlic granules
3 bay leaves
3 Tbl. poultry seasoning
1 Tbl. peppercorns
2 Tbl. sage
pinch of rosemary leaves
pinch of celery leaves

Bring all ingredients to a boil. Remove from heat, cover and let cool. Place turkey in a large but tight fitting pot, cover with brine. Add water to cover entire turkey. Refrigerate for up to 48 hours before turkey day.

Brine removal tips:

On t-day, remove turkey from brine rinse thoroughly. Dump brine container and fill with cool water. Place the turkey in the cool water for 15 minutes to purge excess salt. Then continue to cook in what ever method. I roasted 325* oven for around 3 hours.

Stuffing or Dressing

2 loaves of bread torn to pieces and dried
2-3 c. celery
2-3 c. onion
1 c. butter
1+ quart of stock (vegetable, turkey etc..)
salt
pepper
poultry seasoning
sage

Mix butter, seasonings, celery and onion. Pour mixture over dried bread crumbs and mix in. Add stock as needed to soften the bread. Cook 320* oven for 2 hours stirring every 30 minutes and adding stock and seasonings as needed).